Thread: Purgatory: It's not my fault I'm fat and broke! Board: Limbo / Ship of Fools.
To visit this thread, use this URL:
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=11;t=000597
Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on
:
On UK TV last night the Panorama program reported on the growing problem of people getting into debt above the breathing line and the conflict between lending responsibly and the pursuit of profits by the High Street banks.
Now everybody likes to go "Boo Hiss!" at the High Street Banks but it got me wondering. Just because I can borrow £125,000, simply because I can't resist borrowing £125,000 ... does that make it the Bank's fault if I keep raiding the candy store?
Likewise it troubles me that some obese people have started looking beyond their minds and mouths to the name on the packet for someone to blame and sue for their own lack of self control. Are we creating a society of helpless victims who will do anything EXCEPT look at their own behaviours?
[ 02. January 2007, 19:37: Message edited by: RuthW ]
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
Do you think anyone chooses to be fat or broke?
Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on
:
Come on Hatless ... I'm not talking about those who are fat because of a medical condition or those who are broke because they don't earn enough to live reasonably comfortably. I'm talking about people who are fat because they can't resist sticky buns and people who are broke because they can't resist spending to the limit (even if it's a credit limit).
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
Fr Gregory, I thought you were a socialist? Recently, your posts remind me an awful lot of Melanie Philips (Peace Be Upon her).
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
So why do some people choose to have a sticky bun or go shopping again? Few people decide they want to be fat, few people decide they want to get rid of more money. So what's going on? Are these people defective in some way? Are they lacking something? Are they bad people?
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
Of course the final responsibility rests with the individual to behave sensibly. But there is still a moral onus on others not to exploit stupidity when they find it, isn't there?
I do think its worth exposing the behaviour of (e.g.) banks when they deliberately target tempting offers at people who's credit history shows them to be irresponsible, ignorant or unwary consumers.
Similarly, there's nothing wrong with food producers selling unhealthy food, and it's up to the consumer to moderate their diet. But when the producer tries to fool the unwary by pretending a product is healthier than it is, it's right to call them on it.
Both sides can be wrong at the same time, I think. And when one side is wrong out of stupidity or lack of expertise, while the other knows precisely what it is doing in pursuit of greater profit, then I know at which side I'd lay the most blame.
Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on
:
I'm a complex person Papio. Aren't we all?
You can't reduce me to any political ideology. So, I support all the usually leftie causes ... (qualified) pacifism, internationalism, social justice, redistribution of wealth. However, on other issues I am markedly to the right ... eg., against abortion, in favour of private education (libertarian principle), insistence on personal responsibility. Sometimes the elements don't fit together too well ... but that's human as well.
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Now everybody likes to go "Boo Hiss!" at the High Street Banks but it got me wondering. Just because I can borrow £125,000, simply because I can't resist borrowing £125,000 ... does that make it the Bank's fault if I keep raiding the candy store?
I quite agree that taking a loan you cannot repay is irresponsible. It is also true, of course, that when a bank loans money to someone who cannot repay, they are acting irresponsibly.
In the USA, credit card companies have very agressively sought out bad credit risks, and then got our enlightened legislature to rewrite the bankruptcy laws to bail them out from the excess of their cupidity.
ISTM that something like joint responsibility applies to the problem of obesity. Individuals are responsible for their own waistline -- but a food industry that markets nothing but empty calories to children is as culpable for their actions as is a pimp for his. No-one has to buy -- but that does not excuse the seller, either.
--Tom Clune
Posted by PeaceFeet (# 11001) on
:
It's a complex matter of education, societal influences and willpower. There are also 100gazillion individual cases and circumstances too. But, to risk sounding like a grumpy old man, the old maxim of can't afford, go without is no longer in use.
[rant]
I discovered the other day I have a credit card from Barclays but have never had an account with them, I never signed anything, I never agreed anything. They tell me it is good to have a massive spending power, just in case (at whatever horrible percentage the repayments are). I have a massive overdraft limit that my actual bank regularly increases in an effort to get me to spend.
I was disturbed to discover that many of my neighbours don't actually own their own cars. Credit is the word, it seems.
[/rant]
If I spent all that 'available' money on food, well, that would suggest something about Father Gregory's OP
[I must be a slow typer! 6 posts pipped me!]
[ 03. July 2006, 15:08: Message edited by: PeaceFeet ]
Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on
:
I think that's quite reasonable tclune. I suppose we have to work on all fronts ... but don't you think that the current tendency is to absolve the individual from rersponsibility? Families who let their children eat what they want all the time are just as much the abusers as those who relentless hawk their poisons on TV.
Posted by The Great Gumby (# 10989) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Few people decide they want to be fat, few people decide they want to get rid of more money. So what's going on?
Well, I suggest in a lot of cases, it comes down to a self-absorbed unwillingness to face up to the consequences of one's own actions. In the case of debt, some of the worst people for running up unmanageable debts are paid really very large salaries, they just can't (or won't) stop spending.
I wouldn't say this accounts for all people in debt, not by a long way, but it can't all be explained by saying that people in debt obviously don't earn enough to survive.
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
:
My credit record is (for various reasons) absolutely appalling. It even repels Readers Digest, double glazing and timeshare salesmen.
I suppose the lesson is to screw things up then you will have little alternative than to live within one's means.
I do continue to have difficulty resisting the extra slice though.
[edit: spelling]
[ 03. July 2006, 15:13: Message edited by: Sioni Sais ]
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
There are probably as many reasons as there are fat, broke people.
Posted by The Riv (# 3553) on
:
The harder part is, IMO, to actually decide -- decide -- to become healthily trim, and debt-free, isn't it?
[ 03. July 2006, 15:21: Message edited by: The Riv ]
Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on
:
I think Tom has it -- the word "marketing" explains a large portion of the problems Fr. Gregory is referring to.
My father told me, many years ago, that when he was young, he was, by current standards, quite poor. Everyone around him was also poor. He was born in Mississippi in 1930. No one had money. He, in fact, considered himself well off, because he and his family had a solid, well built house, they always had enough food. The fact that he only got one pair of new shoes or trousers a year, no matter how much he grew that year, didn't matter to him. When the shoes no longer fit, he went barefoot. If the trousers were too short, oh, well. He had a warm bed and a full belly. Life was good.
But the reason, he said, that life was good, the reason he could see it as good, was that he didn't have television or magazines telling him how bad he had it, and telling him what he should aspire to. The images in his mind were built from what he saw around him, not what advertising and marketing people had created to put there.
The advertising and marketing industry spends many hundreds of billions of dollars every year with the express purpose of making people dissatisfied. They spend billions to make you decide that there is something wrong with your life, something wrong with you, if you don't have X or Y. And they do a terrific job of it.
So people buy larger and larger houses, filled with more and more stuff, because they have been persuaded that they must have it to be happy. Of course, it doesn't make them happy. But they believe it should, if only they get the right stuff. So they buy more, and more.
Over the last 50 years, even as families have gotten smaller, houses have gotten larger -- much, much larger. If you have a larger house, you need more stuff to fill it. So people have more stuff -- more of everything.
Think of what the media portrays as a typical family, a typical home, a typical lifestyle. If you believe that's typical, you think you should have it, too. You can't really afford it, you don't need it, you may not even truly want it, if you think about it. But you don't think about it. You respond based on the worldview that you have absorbed from the messages presented to you daily by people paid and trained to alter what you think and what you do, for their own benefit. Not for yours.
Posted by The Great Gumby (# 10989) on
:
Great post, Josephine. That all sounds about right.
Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on
:
Yes, Josephine ... I must accept the force of that.
It's a long time now since I read Vance Packard's "The Hidden Persuaders" but his analysis was and is timely. I suppose we are not all awkward, critical non-conformists who fight the dragons of consumerism. Some people truly have been hijacked. Resistance isn't futile but some folk don't see the need to resist in the first place. This is the Happy Life. Things.
[ 03. July 2006, 15:31: Message edited by: Father Gregory ]
Posted by PhilA (# 8792) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
I think that's quite reasonable tclune. I suppose we have to work on all fronts ... but don't you think that the current tendency is to absolve the individual from rersponsibility?
No. I think in the past, the blame has always been upon the individual and is now righting itself to cover both parties. There may be some individual cases where it could be argued that it has swung too far the other way, but I don't think it is a general problem - at the moment anyway.
quote:
Families who let their children eat what they want all the time are just as much the abusers as those who relentless hawk their poisons on TV.
In a lot of families I know of, health problems and financial hardship go hand in hand. Part of this is down to cheap housing being, well, cheap with the various health problems that poor quality housing entails, but partly this is because nearly all cheap food is unhealthy. Lard is cheaper than olive oil, chicken nuggets are cheaper than real chicken, fresh fruit and veg is expensive and goes off quick - a big problem if you have no car and rely on a taxi to do the shopping; going two or three times a week is not possible - cheap bread lasts longer, but is unhealthy, the list is endless, cheap burgers are the ones with all the fat, same as cheap sausages.
Cooking properly on a low budget is more than possible; if one knows how to cook properly, but many people don't. Getting something out of the freezer and into the oven (gas mark 6, 20-25 mins) is their idea of cooking, and so the cheapest possible food is bought, and it is nearly always crap.
As Jamie Oliver said, if people did to the outside of their children's bodies the amount of damage that they did to the inside, then they would probably end up in prison for child abuse. The sad thing is, the knowledge of how to cook properly is lacking, and the cheap products in the supermarket are nearly always the unhealthy ones.
As for financial problems; I am in a position where I cannot even open a bank account due to past (and present) debts, largely connected with me going bust and not being able to afford to live, added to being very stupid with money whilst self employed, I can understand the problem that people have. Like Sioni, I do find it hard to resist that extra slice.
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
Well, the prevailing ethos of our society is that economic growth is always urgent and that having just a little bit more will make us happier.
I salute the noble work of those who reminds us just a crock of shit that really is.
Posted by duchess (# 2764) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Come on Hatless ... I'm not talking about those who are fat because of a medical condition or those who are broke because they don't earn enough to live reasonably comfortably. I'm talking about people who are fat because they can't resist sticky buns and people who are broke because they can't resist spending to the limit (even if it's a credit limit).
Watch it now, Fr. G., you are starting to sound like a capitalist pig!
I think I am albeit somehow a bleeding heart too (wanting somehow us to have social programs even if they are messed-up, which made me turn in my Libertarian Party card sadly).
I myself am fat but not broke. I fought for years to get out of debt. I lived on mac&cheese. I cried once when somebody stole my lunch at work out of the fridge at a CD plant since I did not have the money to buy a replacement lunch. I know what it is like to juggle bills and pray you have enough to make your rent. To use credit cards to buy groceries when you are flat out of cash.
I got to a point with careful planning...writing everything down I ever buy for years..montly on an excel spread-sheet. I visualised a good job where I didn't have to have a degree outside my high-school diploma. I went on interviews for jobs saying you must have a B.S., B.A. or higher degree...in shoes with holes in them literally (hidden at bottom, I walk on the outer ridges of my feet due to extremely high arches). I got bitched out by interviewers more than once for interviewing for a job that I did not have the qualificaitons for (degree mainly or sometimes experience). I got made fun of by them sometimes. I signed up for over 14 temp agencies at one time. Took Microsoft Office tests over and over to up my score.
I landed a good job...got laid off...then landed a better one due to having the good job on my resume and others...
All this planning, paying off my debt (didn't have cable for years...had only dial-up internet etc) made me a FREE woman. I have ZERO DEBT outside of good debt (mainly my mondo condo). My car is 100% completely paid off. It may have scratches all over it. It is a 1994 old Saturn SL1 with 4 doors, stick-shift. It goes 0 to 60 mph in like 10 light-years. I still drive it into the ground.
I still try to budget myself. I do have friends that are thousands and thousands of dollars in debt. They have all the latest cable channels...go shopping for things all the time. Spend spend spend. Some of them are not fat though, just broke.
I heard this saying and I think it rings true...if you took all the money in the world and divided it up evenly, the poor would stay poor and the rich would stay rich.
Now I must ignore the ship and make some cold-calls...quit writing exciting interesting threads people! I need to ignore this place! Must make more $$$money$$$ today.
Posted by The Lady of the Lake (# 4347) on
:
Fr. Gregory,
can you provide some examples of obese people who sue food companies for the problems they are undergoing ? It's not something I've heard of before.
I'm no expert on this, but it seems to me that obesity has become more common not only due to changes in what sort of food is available, but also with the decline of manual work. The majority of British adults over 30 do not do any regular exercise; the percentage of those who do is tiny, perhaps as small as 10%. Nowadays most of us have to make a concerted effort to keep fit, as it isn't part of our work.
Posted by Nonpropheteer (# 5053) on
:
I often think of the things I could have owned but for eating out all the time. Even as I write this I am struck by the irony that my gf will be coming back momentarily with breakfast from a local biscuit place. The $8 she spends there could have bought 2 dozen eggs, a bag of flour, a 1/2 pound of sausage and a couple of pounds of potatoes. Is it our fault we are always broke, or the marketing department of Tudor's Biscuit World?
When I do eat fatfilled sugary snacks, I do not go out and exercise. Is it my fault I am fat, or is it the fault of Dolly Madison's evil marketing department? ?
It doesn't take an Alan Cresswell (i.e rocket scientist
)to figure out who has the primary responsibility in these two situations. Granted, there are exceptions to the rule, but in most cases the person only has themselves to blame. Though some exceptions to the rule might also include tedious wording in loan agreements that are designed to keep the borrower in the dark about certain aspects of the loan agreement.
Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on
:
Dear Duchess
Thank you for that. Please understand I am not refering to people who have difficulty making ends meet to survive on low income. I am talking about people who are addicted .. people who can't resist the "extra slice." I suppose by saying that I have swung the other way already. It is an addiction and the pushers should get their come uppance.
Dear Lady of the Lake
I think I am on dodgy ground here. This was a remembered case from a TV documentary but the old memory won't deliver the details I'm afraid. I think it had to do with a fast food chain.
Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on
:
A class-action lawsuit was filed against McDonald's, charging them with knowingly imposing health risks on their customers, back in 2003. It was modeled on the lawsuits against tobacco companies.
The lawsuit has been tossed out, resubmitted, and tossed out again at least a couple of times. Google "lawsuit mcdonald's obesity" if you want details.
Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on
:
The other night on the UK news they were observing 40 years of the advent of the credit card (American Express comes to mind). And then came some statistics of some scores of billions that the general public in the UK are now in debt to; unheard of 40 years ago. The report was suggesting that easy credit encouraged many if not most to borrow with little thought for the consequences.
Whereas in the 'good old days' hired purchase which was the nearest one could get to that kind of thing, was quite difficult to arrange and considered something of a risk if one weren't able to make regular payments (ie, the goods would be reclaimed).
My mother's of the school that just doesn't understand how people can use credit the way they do because 'debt' was a dirty word when she and my father were putting a home together. But now it's an acceptable, legitimate way of life if you want to live in a house, drive a car, get a university education or live a modern 21st century lifestyle.
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
My point is still being missed. It's not about fault. Establishing where the fault is doesn't help deal with the problem. People choose to eat more than they should, but they don't want to be fat. They know that eating too much will make them fat, and that this is dangerous and unattractive, but still they eat too much. Why? What is going on?
People are not as free as we like to think we are. We are not always able to make the choices we should. Establishing fault and playing the blame game certainly does not help. We need a more subtle understanding of human nature.
Posted by Papa Smurf (# 1654) on
:
yes, it is up to us not to spend more than we can afford, but one of the things the TV program highlighted was the duplicity/hypocrisy of the banks
One person had 2 credit cards from differently named card companies but which were provided by the same bank.
He was sent a letter from one card saying "you are xx thousands in debt, pay now or else", and within a few days was sent a letter from the other company saying "please have a credit increase of xy thousand"
So in the space of a few days the same bank was chasing him to pay up, and encouraging him to spend more.
Posted by duchess (# 2764) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Dear Duchess
Thank you for that. Please understand I am not refering to people who have difficulty making ends meet to survive on low income. I am talking about people who are addicted .. people who can't resist the "extra slice." I suppose by saying that I have swung the other way already. It is an addiction and the pushers should get their come uppance.
Dear Lady of the Lake
I think I am on dodgy ground here. This was a remembered case from a TV documentary but the old memory won't deliver the details I'm afraid. I think it had to do with a fast food chain.
I think that more education is needed. I voraciously read Suze Orman books I could not afford to purchase, but went to the bookstore and stood in the aisle reading. I figured she was an expert and a woman, so I should follow her advice. I applied it and got out of debt.
We need to make Suze Orman 411 available EVERYWHERE. That is my solution.
The other step, people having self-control and applying the principals of saving up, paying off debt etc...that only comes through the spirit of the wind.
Posted by Nonpropheteer (# 5053) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
My point is still being missed. It's not about fault. Establishing where the fault is doesn't help deal with the problem. People choose to eat more than they should, but they don't want to be fat. They know that eating too much will make them fat, and that this is dangerous and unattractive, but still they eat too much. Why? What is going on?
Much like cigarette smoking, eating too much and not exercising enough are choices one makes. You can't deny them the responsibility for their choices, but you can educate them to let them know the choices that they are making are bad. If someone gets involved in an automobile accident solely because they chose to drive at unsafe speeds, we don't blame the auto companies.
Posted by Newman's Own (# 420) on
:
What of those who are making a fortune supposedly selling the 'solutions' to these problems? They don't impress me either. One needs only look through the 'self help aisle' (where one can make a fortune catering to people who like to play at being mentally ill - providing the solution in the process, of course); the 'diet club' mind games where one needs 'the group'; etc., etc.. And those who get brainwashed become walking advertisements - even if they have little real success.
I loathe lawsuits, laws, and the like aimed at regulating people's behaviour - and Lord knows there can be very tragic, devastating reasons that one is fat or broke or both. I loathe stereotypes most of all.
Posted by Joan_of_Quark (# 9887) on
:
I had a "yoof of today" moment in the hair salon when it transpired none of the stylists under 50 had a clue how to cook. One girl in the confirmation class last year walked home alongside me and couldn't remember when she'd last done a 20 minute stroll. This clearly isn't just some ultra-disconnected underclass thing. There has been some kind of sea change where people eat mostly prepared and junk food, and exercise far, far less than a generation or two ago did as part of their regular routines.
I have a problem with a lot of the anti-fat propaganda as it frequently fails to make a distinction between a level of chunkiness that is widely seen as unaesthetic and actual health dangers. Hence the phenomenon of all those size-12 young women at work wittering on about silly diets when what they need (if anything) is a better exercise routine and healthier food. Dieting generally puts people in a state where all they can think about is food, and the buildup to dieting is buying some book by an orange-tanned charlatan pretending they have a real doctorate/medical degree.
I know precisely why I am a lardarse, and also why I am currently going down the less-is-more route - a load of trouble in my life such that frankly I'm lucky I found chocolate rather than crack cocaine, plus a bunch of health problems which decided to gang up on me the last few years. I also love healthy food and enjoy exercising, and know the difference between the real dangers caused by weight and the ones which are actually part of the poor food and unfitness which *often* go with it.
I'd definitely be up for teaching healthy cooking/budgeting/whatever to interested people if the church ever decided that was its territory. It would go well with churches (usually) letting AA/NA etc use their halls for meetings.
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
On UK TV last night the Panorama program reported on the growing problem of people getting into debt above the breathing line and the conflict between lending responsibly and the pursuit of profits by the High Street banks.
Now everybody likes to go "Boo Hiss!" at the High Street Banks but it got me wondering. Just because I can borrow £125,000, simply because I can't resist borrowing £125,000 ... does that make it the Bank's fault if I keep raiding the candy store?
If the bank offers to lend you £125,000 that you can not afford to pay back, then it is absolutely the fault of the bank. Banks are supposed to check the credit-worthiness of the loan, at risk of losing all the money to a bankruptcy - and if those taking out the loans can't repay, the banks aren't doing their job.
It is also (usually) the fault of the person taking out the loan for taking out a loan they can't afford.
quote:
Likewise it troubles me that some obese people have started looking beyond their minds and mouths to the name on the packet for someone to blame and sue for their own lack of self control. Are we creating a society of helpless victims who will do anything EXCEPT look at their own behaviours?
And compare the nutrition content between cheap and expensive meals...
Posted by dosey (# 10259) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
Fr Gregory, I thought you were a socialist? Recently, your posts remind me an awful lot of Melanie Philips (Peace Be Upon her).
I hope she burns in hell!!
I think its more to do with consumerism, which leads to more income which leads to more disposable income,which leads to higher comsumerism.
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
High consumerism and debt is GOOD for capitalism.
Posted by madteawoman (# 11174) on
:
Interesting topic and interesting responses.
Can anyone explain why it is that someone who starves themselves or purges after eating has an illness, deserving of our sympathy and help, yet someone who overeats and doesn't throw up is a fat pig who deserves our condemnation? I agree with hatless that there are ususally real reasons why people overeat to the point of obestiy that go way beyond gluttony. I also think that temptation is a huge factor. We have to exert our willpower against overeating and overspending far more rigourously than someone who lives in a culture without access the amount of food and material goods that we take for granted.
If there were no advertising, there would be very little temptation. My level of willpower would be far less relevant, because there would be much less to resist. Instead we put ourselves foursquare inside the chocolate shop, lock the doors and say "Don't touch!" How sensible is that? Yet suggest a curb on advertising to the powers that be and all hell will break loose, for you would be arguing against the free enterprise narrative our society lives and shops by!
Posted by PaulTH* (# 320) on
:
We must all take persoanl responsibility for what we do whether it involves borrowing money we can't afford to pay back, or overconsuming and underexercising our way to obesity. Yet it isn't quite so simple. When my parents were children before WW2 few working class people had a bank account. They lived from hand to mouth. They couldn't get credit except from unscrupulous loan sharks so for the most part nobody had any debt. They lived on poverty cooking usually involving cheap fatty cuts of meat with pastry made from lard and flour, all cheap ingredients. Nobody had a car, an electric hoover, a motorised lawn mower or an electric mixer. To go anywhere or do anything required physical effort. Most houses only had a coal fire with a damper to heat the water. So people expended energy to work and keep warm which today's world doesn't require.
In the post war era, my father got his own bank account in 1959 and bought his first house on mortgage in 1961. This was a big change. People could now borrow money from the bank, or if their bank credit was good obtain hire purchase on the explosion of new devices "essential" to a happy and prosperous home. The situation we see today is just the logical nighmarish final outcome of that major change. No longer do people have to "save up" as my grandmother always said if they want a holiday, a fridge when they became available in the early 50's or now, an ipod, dvd state of the art mobile phone etc.
Even people who work and earn good money and finance their debts buy now and pay later. If its desireable I must have it and have it now. While I opened this post saying I believe in persoanl responsibility, look at the way people are bombarded with the notion that they must have everyhing in order to be happy. look at the way they are bombarded with loan offers, credit cards, pay nothing for two years schemes and ask yourself: who is to blame for the unmanageable debt burden in this country? People are individually to blame but the financial institutions which make all this so easy for people and then torture them when they foul up have to take 50% of the blame. An acquaintence of mine ran up £74k in loans and credit cards because he get over his head with debt, borrowed more to clear it off, lived on credit cards because his income was going to service his loans In the end it all came crashing down and he was declared bankrupt and lost his house.
The big financial institutions make record profits year on year. They cancel billions of debt to third world countries, which I fully support, yet they hound an old man to suicide because he owes £35. They vent their spleen on vulnerable people who have no way of getting away from them. I believe its time for the government to intervene and enforce guidelines on how much people can borrow as a proportion of income. Those with debts over an unmanageable level should have a right to a write off of large amounts if they make the effort to pay some. And people who have no way of paying shouldn't be allowed credit. If this isn't done, the bubble will burst on all of us someday.
Posted by duchess (# 2764) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
... I believe its time for the government to intervene and enforce guidelines on how much people can borrow as a proportion of income....
No.
[ 03. July 2006, 23:33: Message edited by: duchess ]
Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by duchess:
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
... I believe its time for the government to intervene and enforce guidelines on how much people can borrow as a proportion of income....
No.
The government regulates banks and other financial institutions quite heavily. The government sets rules for interest rates, bankruptcy, and the like. It doesn't seem entirely unreasonable for the government to say, for example, that loans exceeding a certain proportion of a borrower's income or assets can't be collected if the borrower should declare bankruptcy.
Posted by dosey (# 10259) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
High consumerism and debt is GOOD for capitalism.
Papio, I'm not denying that. Though the question here is capitalism a good system? In principle it works fine. Though for me it is a little too dependant on infinite resources, which we don't have.
This would be avoidable if we invested in recylcing, yet capitalism doesn't wantthat,as it wants tomake the most amount of money quickly.
MOST (not all) systems are good, yet in practice they really don't work. That's because as humans we really can suck when it comes to greed.Why have more money than the GDP of some countries, and the answer is because they can.
Has comsumerism created more problems than it have solved. I honestly don't know,I don't havean ecomics degree...
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
Hi dosey.
I am not a capitalist.
I don't think capitalism is a good system.
Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
High consumerism and debt is GOOD for capitalism.
And whom is capitalism good for?
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
primarily, the owners of the means of production.
Posted by muchafraid (# 10738) on
:
I would like to first say "hi" since this is one of my very first posts on the ship. ;-)
I think that Father Gregory has pointed out a valid plight that society is facing right now. I would just like to shift some words around, if I may.
I believe that obesity and financial irresponsibility are the consequences of a much broader problem. Dependency. People who suffer from obesity are dependent on food (genius, I know). Even if they have lost control over everything else in their lives, they still have control over their health, even if the end result is destructive. People who borrow too much money and spend more than they have saved are dependent on the banks to supply the fast cash they need to buy whatever it is that they think will help them gain back that control.
You can't tell someone who is completely dependent on something to "take responsibility for yourself and see that the choices you are making are harmful." You could, but you'd get a glassy, empty stare (if you've ever confronted a loved one who is addicted to drugs or alcohol, you've seen the stare). If through whatever circumstance you have become THAT overweight or THAT financially unstable, it's impossible to see your own fault in it.
Obesity and overspending have become, to our society, illnesses much like drug abuse, alcoholism, bulemia, etc. "Get off your ass and get a job" isn't going to solve the problem.
- Mrs. Digory Kirke
Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
primarily, the owners of the means of production.
Bingo-zingo. And it's to their advantage for us to buy more food and borrow more money. So they bombard us with messages telling us to do so. And by golly, it works.
Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on
:
I suppose this boils down to whether or not people can reform their own culture when facing down such huge commercial interests. Personal responsibility extends to this also ... unless we choose to become victims on this front as well. Political agitation, personal responsibility, alternative lifestyles, good education ... it's all part of the mix ISTM.
Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on
:
Look, I know the reason I'm fat. I'm fat because eating and chatting on the computer are more pleasant by factors of 10 than exercise. Plain and simple.
Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on
:
It also occurs to me that people who berate others for being fat tend to be people with extremely high metabolisms, and large amounts of self-righteousness.
Posted by duchess (# 2764) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
Look, I know the reason I'm fat. I'm fat because eating and chatting on the computer are more pleasant by factors of 10 than exercise. Plain and simple.
But you make a damn good caser salad. And you have plenty of red wine. That is the important thing.
And I found a place at your table.
Posted by Honeybones (# 10603) on
:
And I know why Im fat. Because I used to eat on auto-pilot and not think about the fact that two bowls of ice cream a day will make me fatter.
When you get up in the morning, do you think through the consequences of making and drinking coffee? No. You just do it. Thats how a person becomes obese. By not thinking, really by avoiding thinking. For years I purposefully did not think about what I was eating, I just ate for pleasure. To relax, de-stress, cover my feelings. Whatever. Getting into debt has just the same attitude, substituting money for food.
In the last eight months Ive lost some weight by changing the way I eat. But I dont think about food all the time. I think about how hungry I am all the time. I think about how good it feels to step on the scales these days. I THINK before every bite of food I take, about whether or not it is too much.
Why are so many people drowning in debt and obese? Because they mentally shift the blame onto someone/something else and happily continue with their destructive behaviour.
Posted by Gort (# 6855) on
:
I don't care if someone is fat or not (or broke). It just seems strange to me that people can be so interested in eating mass quantities when food is personally not very interesting. In fact, hunger is a pain in the ass, demanding daily attention. That so many can find satisfaction and reward in something so mundane is beyond me. When used as compensation for depression or whatever, it's as though you would want to breathe more air because you've had a bad day.
All the requirements to keep this carcass animated are boring and to put yourself into debt so that it can be more decorated is simply bizarre. Doesn't anyone feel uncomfortable when they over-eat? Blah!
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
primarily, the owners of the means of production.
Bingo-zingo. And it's to their advantage for us to buy more food and borrow more money. So they bombard us with messages telling us to do so. And by golly, it works.
Why yes, that would have been my original point.
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
:
I would concur totally banks ( or other institutions ) who loan money that the borrower cannot repay are stupid and negligent. The number of adverts for "clear your debt" services does indicate that this is a growing problem. The debt agreement ( where everyone agrees exactly how much and when the money will be paid off ) are better than the new loan ones ( which really make me sick - so, you can't pay off all your debt - why not borrow money to do so. F*ckwits ).
However, the free availability of credit does put much more responsibility onto individuals to not take advantage of it. ISTM that some people are very bad at making their lifestyle choices sensibly, because the temptation of the credit proves too hard to resist. Since Adam and Eve, we have struggled with temptation, and far too often given in. That is not to excuse it, but to acknowledge that it is a part of being human.
The food issue is actually very similar, and closely related - in both ways. As individuals, we need to take responsibility in a society where food is abundant, to not overeat. But, very often we will fail. However there is also a responsibility on the food manufacturers to make food that is not especially unhealthy or addictive. Which tends to be in contradiction to their business needs to sell more and produce cheaply. Extra salt in the fries will increase drinks sales.
Is it my fault I am fat and broke ( if I was )? Yes, without question. Do the financial organisations and food manufacturers ( and advertisers ) also have a degree of culpability? Probably, if they have pushed products onto me that are not in my best interests, when I am not in a position to make good choices.
Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on
:
We live in a society which seems to value us by how much we have and what brand it is.
We have to have the best house, the best TV, the best clothes, the best holidays and these cost money. So many people fall into the trap of thinking that this is what makes us successful.
Banks aren't actually responsible for that culture. However, to the extent that they cash in on it, they can do very well out of the interest that they earn. If you can pay it back, no problem, even if after 10 years, all you have to show for your hard work is a nice house, nice telly and no time to spend with either of them.
Banks do sometimes lend to people who can't afford to repay them. But they don't actually want that type of customer. It's nuts to think that banks want to lend someone $30,000 and get none of it back. Bankruptcy means that the debts are handled by and administrator and most of the debts of the bankrupt are usually not recovered by the lenders. No lender wants to be an unsecured lender of a bankrupt.
Banks who lend to people without doing proper assessments need to wear the loss that arises from doing so. But people who borrow money and spend it, have to bear some responsibility.
But in my view, the only way to stop this ridiculous borrowing/spending/getting into trouble cycle, is for society to get its act together and value things more important that the executive lifestyle.
As for weight - well, I put eating in much the same category as drugs, alcohol, gambling and spending. It's fine in moderation, but it can be addictive. When it becomes addictive, it's a problem. But a health problem, rather than a social problem. At the moment, it's treated as a social problem.
Posted by The Great Gumby (# 10989) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
Banks do sometimes lend to people who can't afford to repay them. But they don't actually want that type of customer. It's nuts to think that banks want to lend someone $30,000 and get none of it back.
This is true, but they aren't generally too keen on lending to people who will repay everything on time, either. Most of their profit comes in penalty charges for late payment, excess interest for the same, and so on, so their ideal borrower is someone who will just about stay afloat long enough to pay off the debt, needing frequent extensions along the way. Sometimes they sail a little too close to the wind, and push someone into bankruptcy, but they just consider that an occupational hazard, which barely puts a dent in their profits. It's still worth their while to target the people who are right on the edge. It makes me sick.
Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on
:
Not sure that I agree with that (although maybe it is different in the US/UK).
Banks borrow funds to lend out. That costs money. They really want a customer who pays on time, at least for personal and home loans. No bank wants to write off a loan or sell the security behind a loan. It costs too much.
Credit cards are a different matter and what they really want in those cases is a customer who pays the minumum monthly balance. They do load up the accounts with fees, but at the end of the day, they do want a customer who can service the debt. Once the customer can't pay at all, the bank is stuffed.
Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on
:
I used to work in a bank, (many years ago). I left in 1979 which was just about the time the lending culture began to change. Before this time, the bank manager was an accessible person who ran the local branch. "Business managers" and "Personal Lending Consultants" were unheard of. If you wanted an overdraft, you went to see the manager. Nobody had sales targets, competition between the banks wasn't as ferocious as it is now and the economy may have been bankrupt but it didn't run on personal debt to the same extent. In the UK at least a deliberate decision was made to take the foot off the brake and deregulate. Plastic became the easy ticket to have now pay later (or never). It didn't matter now that the bank didn't know its personal customers personally ... all you needed to bother about was the credit score, tick boxes and sales targets. Money became a commodity like any other other and not just a medium of exchange. The genie is out of the bottle now and there's no way back short of an economic crisis. Global warming could become the thing that unstitches it all. There are indeed "limits to growth."
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
Not sure that I agree with that (although maybe it is different in the US/UK).
I'm not an expert, but the crux of the programme mentioned in the OP was a bank executive (identity hidden to protect her career) claiming that the UK banks do exactly what Gumby described. The greatest profit is to be made from from people skating along the edge of bankruptcy. If they do fall over the edge, sufficient profit will have been made over the course of the loan from interest and penalties to make up for the loss of part of the principal. And most people don't fall over - in the final, final end most lenders will negotiate a settlement that means they get some part of their money back over time rather than let the borrower default altogether through bankruptcy. So the banks deliberately target people with a somewhat dodgy credit record.
That was the claim anyway, I don't have the expertise to say whether it's the whole story or not.
[ 04. July 2006, 09:22: Message edited by: Rat ]
Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on
:
I don't buy it, Rat. The most profitable loan surely comes from lending X amount over X years at X interest, and getting it paid back as contracted.
The minute it falls into arrears, someone needs to be paid to chase the debt. If it falls over altogether, the bank may not lose out completely, but it loses all that future interest. Someone teetering on bankruptcy is a nightmare to deal with.
As I said earlier, credit cards fall into a slightly different basket. Banks want cardholders to pay the minimum. They can keep the interest running forever.
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Gort:
I don't care if someone is fat or not (or broke). It just seems strange to me that people can be so interested in eating mass quantities when food is personally not very interesting. In fact, hunger is a pain in the ass, demanding daily attention. That so many can find satisfaction and reward in something so mundane is beyond me. When used as compensation for depression or whatever, it's as though you would want to breathe more air because you've had a bad day.
Yes, but that's why you're (probably) not fat! It's like the people who say smoking is horrid, I can't understand why you do it, I tried it once and didn't like it. Well, exactly!
Gambling simply holds no interest for me whatsoever - been there, done it, been bored - so I suspect my chances of becoming a gambling addict are low. Dangerous, high-adreneline sports, too, do nothing for me at all. But for some people these things evidently fill a need they need filling.
There's no big success in resisting something that doesn't tempt you.
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
:
The profitable loan is to someone with a poor credit rating, who does eventually pay off all the loan. The reason is that the interest rate, because they are a high risk, is high ( sometimes stupidly so ). This means that, if they actually do pay it all off, they get a lot of interest for no real trouble. If they do have to start chasing, then this is built into the interest rate, so they will still make some significant profit. It is only if they have to write off the loan at an early stage that they will make a significant loss, which is why they are so nice about trying to help you pay.
I had a car loan many years ago, that I knew I was going to be able to pay back fairly quickly. I chose a loan that would allow me to do so without any problems. The total cost of the loan was very small - I was probably not considered their best customer that year!
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
I don't buy it, Rat. The most profitable loan surely comes from lending X amount over X years at X interest, and getting it paid back as contracted.
The minute it falls into arrears, someone needs to be paid to chase the debt.
Ah, but at that point the bank sells the debt on to another company. So they don't pay out, they make some money on the deal, on top of the interest and penalties they've already pulled in. And the fact that debt retrieval companies are willing to buy up bad debts would suggest that there's at least some money to be made there too.
I can't really argue the point very well, I don't know enough about it.
Banks must like good payers too, or those of us who're not on the edge of bankruptcy wouldn't be able to get loans and mortgages. But by the same logic, there must be profit to be made from dodgy credit risks, or the cable TV channels wouldn't be loaded down with adverts by companies offering consolidation loans to the indebted. Many of them say outright that they'll lend to people who already have bad credit ratings or county-court judgements against them for bad debt.
Posted by The Great Gumby (# 10989) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
I don't buy it, Rat. The most profitable loan surely comes from lending X amount over X years at X interest, and getting it paid back as contracted.
Depends what charges you make for missed or late payments. Let's say I lend you £1,000 to be paid back in 10 monthly payments of £105. That'll net me a profit of £50 in 10 months. But suppose you're struggling to pay it off, and one month (say month 6) you can't make your payment. I, as your bank manager, charge you, say, £20 for the missed payment, and charge interest to your outstanding debt to cover the missed payment, which could be at a punitive rate of interest, but for the sake of argument I'll be generous and call it another £4 for each remaining month, so £20 in total. I get my money back in 11 months instead of 10, but I make £90 profit instead of £50.
I've not done anything in that example that would be unusual, in fact I've been fairly generous in some of my charges compared with some real-life examples, but I've substantially increased my profit for very little effort on my part. There's no need to "chase" debt at this sort of level, because provision for these charges will be built into the loan agreement - generally, you can just send a new statement and ask the borrower to call you to discuss the missed payment. Word the letter in sufficiently threatening terms and they'll be desperate to talk to you.
Posted by I_am_not_Job (# 3634) on
:
I must admit I felt very uncomfortable at a recent Christian Aid week service that was led by a mixture of overweight and obese people begging the congregation to give more money. It was more the dissonance, rather than hypocracy, that got me.
I can't help feeling that despite wanting to show Christian sympathy and charity, and awareness of the need for personal responsibility, the reason why a lot of Western people are fat and poor is simply a reflection of where they are in the evolutionary cycle.
In the past being fat was a sign of wealth (see current attitudes in Africa Obesity problems in SA - some fascinating comments on the article too) now being thin (and healthy and living longer) is a sign of being rich.
A combination of intelligence and strong will power these days in the West is more likely to mean one is financially comfortable and fit and healthy and at the top of the evolutionary pile. I'm sure there are lots of shipmates who would say they are exceptions (probably that they're intelligent but fat), but this is the logical conclusion about the general situation.
Mousethief said:
quote:
Look, I know the reason I'm fat. I'm fat because eating and chatting on the computer are more pleasant by factors of 10 than exercise. Plain and simple.
AND
It also occurs to me that people who berate others for being fat tend to be people with extremely high metabolisms, and large amounts of self-righteousness.
C'mon, you know the evidence is against you
. (and calling fit people self-righteous is just protecting yourself with insults whatever the evidence presented - no wry smile with finger wagging smiley available
).
Firstly, exercise creates endorphins, natural highs, so it is provably fun! Secondly, you may feel too tired to exercise, but actually if you do it it makes you more energetic and lifts lethargy. Thirdly, regarding metabolic rate, the more exercise you do, the higher it gets, so it's a circular arguement. You're base metabolism may be naturally low or high, but it will improve if you do exercise.
Trust me, I used to hate sport as a kid; I was always the last one to be picked, but I forced myself to take up exercise for a squadrillion reasons (mainly to get to spend time with my husband, but also so I had the energy to have kids, and because I can see my father-in-law's life being ruined by his excess weight and type II diabetes). I'm still at the back of the group in my triathlon club's training sessions, but I'm there and I'm improving and I'm taking responsibility for my health. (Personally, I think the thing is, most people just find it hard to grasp the fact that you're meant to get out of breath when you exercise, and yes it is mildly uncomfortable, but it gets better, and is immensely satisfying and the overall impact on your life is potentially huge).
Perhaps the famous dictum could just as well be 'the fat get fatter and the thin get thinner'. But I do think as a part of Christian maturity, which involves personal responsiblity, looking after our physical health is just as important a part as looking after our mental and spiritual health, as our life is a gift, not to be abused or wasted. Sure, it's easy to point the finger, but I think the Church's focus on sexual sin etc. misses out on the more pernicious and pervasive sin of greed, which applies to both these issues - food and money.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
Exercise doesn't produce endorphins for me, or at least I don't react pleasurably to them. All I get is out of breath, fed up, and in pain.
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
With Karl again. I have never felt high because of excercise, just sweaty and achy.
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
:
I was a gym member for a year. And I actually went, 2-3 times a week.
It didn't give me a high at all, or a real sense of satisfaction. I could see the improvements that it made, but it was not enough to keep me doing it.
Sitting at home, eating doughnuts is far more fun.
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on
:
Yes, the only pleasure I have ever noticed from exercise is the feeling of relief when I stop.
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
Sport = ritual humiliation, getting jeered at by stupid jocks who couldn't pass a proper exam if their lives depended on it, feeling as though you have the worlds worst hangover, getting called a poofter and being beaten up in the shower room. Sweating a lot.
The Gym = largely the same as above, but you pay an obscene amount of money for the privelledge.
It's not even as though I actually lost any weight when I went to the gymn three times a week. I didn't.
I am fat and don't excercise. I almost certainly won't live to 90, perhaps not much past 60 (although i hope I do) but better that then going to the gym for the rest of my life. Yuck.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
Yes, the only pleasure I have ever noticed from exercise is the feeling of relief when I stop.
Posted by I_am_not_Job (# 3634) on
:
Last 3 posters - then do a form of exercise that you enjoy! Go hiking, dancing, play frisbee. Do it more than just occassionally and you will feel the benefits. If I said driving gives you a feeling of freedom, you might not agree with me even after your first 3 or 4 lessons. Exercise is about a way of life, not sitting on your arse eating blood sugar rush inducing rubbish. And when you can walk up to your offie on the 4th floor without getting out of breath or using the lift you will feel a smile coming across your face and feel energised to face the day.
Posted by Cod (# 2643) on
:
Take up cycling. Nothing is more satisfying than abusing motorists in traffic, and then speeding away leaving them in impotent rage.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by I_am_not_Job:
Last 3 posters - then do a form of exercise that you enjoy! Go hiking, dancing, play frisbee. Do it more than just occassionally and you will feel the benefits.
Already do that. But there's not a lot of opportunity for a really good fellwalk with a kid, another on the way, and a job. Of course, you can explain to Mrs Backslider why she should look after the kids every other Saturday, but best of luck.
quote:
If I said driving gives you a feeling of freedom, you might not agree with me even after your first 3 or 4 lessons. Exercise is about a way of life, not sitting on your arse eating blood sugar rush inducing rubbish.
Aye, but there's the rub. It's a way of life some of us don't enjoy. At all. The exercise I get out of fellwalking is a by-product; if I could find a way of doing it without the physical exertion I would.
quote:
And when you can walk up to your offie on the 4th floor without getting out of breath or using the lift you will feel a smile coming across your face and feel energised to face the day.
Can already do that. Tenth floor if called for. No exercise regime required
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
I'm not sure there is a form of excercise I enjoy.
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
Oh no, I can hear my hobby horse cantering up behind me. Must resist...must resist...
But please. In 37 years of life I think I've tried every form of exercise available in this country (with the exception of rugby). And I've persisted, God have I persisted. Played team games with friends, joined clubs, went to exercise classes, gym 4 times a week for 2 years. And I fucking hated every single fucking minute. Every single one was a chore, pursued with grim determination and no enjoyment at all. Why on earth can't people who like exercise believe that other people don't?
How many people who just love to exercise would be happy to sign up to spending every evening after work doing some chore they don't enjoy? For life? Might they backslide a little, maybe even decide to have some fun instead sometimes? I suspect so. Then can the rest of us lecture them about their lack of application and self-indulgence, and give them no credit for what they have forced themselves, miserably, to do?
(I do enjoy cycling, thank god, and cycled a 16 mile round trip to work in summer for the last 2 years. Didn't lose any weight, though.)
Posted by Astro (# 84) on
:
About a year ago one of the colour supplements had an article about people who had commited suicide because of their debts. Anyway they managed to talk to someone who had been a junior government minister in the 1980's involved in the changes to credit laws. They expected him to say that it was not the governments' fault - however he did admit that they may have gone too far. He talked about the old days (1960's and 70's) when loans were largely confined to the middle classes (I remember when you needed to have saved with a building society for a few years before they would offer you a mortgage and the early credit cards were only available to those who were approved by their bank manager and with a credit limit set by him/her) and the government wanted to expand teh availability of credit to everyone so they did - they extended the availablity of credit to anyone - basically they allowed any financila institution to lend to anyone who walked in off the street whatever they wanted. The ex-minister admitted that this was probably not a good idea.
I suppose it was a bit like letting children who previously had to ask their parents for sweets the freedom to help themselves to whatever they like whenever they liked from the sweetshop.
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
:
Used to enjoy Rugby but it wasn't a great form of exercise, not at the level I played anyway.
Too much beer and post-match curries and you work, when young, to get your weight up then you can't shed the bloody stuff when you stop playing and a relatively tightly packed 15 stone become a very flabby 18 stone in (it seems) weeks.
Me on a cycle? You jest. It looks like the saddle is missing and the frame has disappeared up my arse
Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on
:
Dear Astro
I can back that up absolutely. I left the banking industry in 1979 precisely when these changes came into force. It's been downhill all the way since. Of course, if we didn't get ourselves into debt the economy would probably collapse. Credit is the new junk food. You can't stop and you can't get enough. We're all hooked ... including the Chancellor.
Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Astro:
He talked about the old days (1960's and 70's) when loans were largely confined to the middle classes (I remember when you needed to have saved with a building society for a few years before they would offer you a mortgage and the early credit cards were only available to those who were approved by their bank manager and with a credit limit set by him/her).
Reminds me of the old definition:
Bank: A place where, in order to get a loan, you have to prove you don't need one.
Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by I_am_not_Job:
I must admit I felt very uncomfortable at a recent Christian Aid week service that was led by a mixture of overweight and obese people begging the congregation to give more money. It was more the dissonance, rather than hypocracy, that got me.
What dissonance? Surely you don't actually believe that these people wouldn't need to collect money from the congregation if they donated their own grocery money instead?
Studies done several years ago, proved once and for all, that the average "overweight" person actually eats a little less than skinny folk. That's because years of dieting (they also have exceptionally good will-power) had taught their bodies to live on less calories than average.
It's a shame to lump problems with money and problems with weight in one thread. We have far more control over our spending habits than our weight. Genetic factors and our body's own strong desire to defend it's own weight make losing and keeping it off virtually impossible for a large segment of society. We're not fat because we're lazy, weak, or under-evolved. We're fat because we diet. We're fat because depleted fat cells are desperate to replenish themselves before the next "famine" comes along.
Fact. 98% of people who lose weight regain it within five years. The other 2% probably died. They aren't all weak or lacking in strong Christian values.
Case in point -- me. I weighed about 110 during my 20's and 30's and people thought I looked very fit.Truth was, I smoked 2 packs a day. Once I quit smoking I gained 60 pounds in six months. I've lost and re-gained that 60 pounds about five times.
Jan.1st 2005. I gave up all sweets. Since then not so much as a piece of birthday cake or a spoon of jam has passed my lips. I also began working-out six days a week. By Jan. 1st 2006 I had lost the 60 pounds. At that point, following the same program, my body began to regain.
My body has learned to live on less calories and compensate for the extra activity. I've gained back a pound a month since then. In five years I'll have it all back; only then I'll be just as fat, while having to work-out six days a week and never eating sweets.
We can't win this battle.
Posted by I_am_not_Job (# 3634) on
:
quote:
I've tried every form of exercise available...I hated every ****ing single minute......................(I do enjoy cycling, thank god, and cycled a 16 mile round trip to work in summer for the last 2 years. Didn't lose any weight, though.)
?
And anyway, it's not that you didn't lose weight, it's whether you gained weight, or how much more you would have gained if you hadn't done in.
Posted by I_am_not_Job (# 3634) on
:
done in ? sorry, done it
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
:
I do walk where I reasonable can. I even have a pedometer, which is quite interesting. I always use the stairs, not the lift.
Sports I am so rubbish at, you wouldn't believe, so no way. Hiking - we do when on holiday, and that is lots of fun, but it takes a lot of time out, so is rarely practical outside specific breaks.
Cycling - I cycled to work for a year or so, in East London. Please would those who suggest cycling do this - in London, in the rush hour, every day for at least a few months. And then tell me that "Cycling is such a pleasure". F*cking awful, but it does help your prayer life. Along with dancing, I don't have a good sense of balance, so these will never be natural for me, and so will always be hard work.
I am overweight. There are two related reasons for this. Firstly, I tend to live a fairly sedentary lifestyle - I work in an office on computers. I do what I can, including taking a reasonable walk at lunchtimes, but it is a hard job, and I really have no energy to do anything else outside work. Why do I have no energy - partly because of being overweight, and partly due to being ill.
Secondly, when I am feeling grotty, I tend to eat - comfort eating. Not good, but the sugar boost it gives me does help me continue. Of course it doesn't help the weight. I know I am not the only one for whom this is an issue - either I eat something which puts on weight, or I am totally lethargic, and unable to function. So I eat, which ( in the longer term ) drives the spiral downwards.
So I'm human. Sorry.
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
I have always weighed more than I should, and have always eaten significantly less then do my skinny grandparents (who eat cakes every single day ffs).
Not only do people who weigh a few stones more than they should tend to eat LESS then you, they tend to buy CHEAPER food than you, oh skinny judgemental ones.
[ 04. July 2006, 13:16: Message edited by: Papio ]
Posted by Nonpropheteer (# 5053) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Newman's Own:
I loathe lawsuits, laws, and the like aimed at regulating people's behaviour - and Lord knows there can be very tragic, devastating reasons that one is fat or broke or both. I loathe stereotypes most of all.
Yeah, people scream "medical condition" all day long, and that is true for a minority. But the fact is the majority of people would not be as fat as they are if they would eat healthier foods and engage in moderate exercise 30 minutes a day 3 days a week. Myself included.
quote:
Originally posted by madteawoman:
If there were no advertising, there would be very little temptation. My level of willpower would be far less relevant, because there would be much less to resist.
I hate this attitude. "I'm a a mindless zombie and demand someone else take responsibility for my gastronomical decisions because I have no self control -but I should still be able to vote, drive a car, and have sex." WTF is that?? You are responsible for your own choices. If you continue to overconsume sugar and get adult-onset diabetes because of that - You're at fault, not sugary snacks. If advertising is such a problem, quit reading magazines and watching commercial television.
Posted by I_am_not_Job (# 3634) on
:
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by I_am_not_Job:
I must admit I felt very uncomfortable at a recent Christian Aid week service that was led by a mixture of overweight and obese people begging the congregation to give more money. It was more the dissonance, rather than hypocracy, that got me.
What dissonance? Surely you don't actually believe that these people wouldn't need to collect money from the congregation if they donated their own grocery money instead?
OK. How about incongrous. Big fat person stands up and says 'please feed the starving little children'. I can see the cartoon already.
quote:
We're fat because we diet. We're fat because depleted fat cells are desperate to replenish themselves before the next "famine" comes along.
Don't diet, eat healthily in the first place. Yo-yo dieting never works. Just cabbage soup vs. normal 3 meals a day is obviously going to confuse the body's metabolism.
quote:
Jan.1st 2005. I gave up all sweets. Since then not so much as a piece of birthday cake or a spoon of jam has passed my lips. I also began working-out six days a week. By Jan. 1st 2006 I had lost the 60 pounds. At that point, following the same program, my body began to regain.
My body has learned to live on less calories and compensate for the extra activity. I've gained back a pound a month since then. In five years I'll have it all back; only then I'll be just as fat, while having to work-out six days a week and never eating sweets.
I'm sorry you've struggled, but there are a lot more factors to just not eating sweets and doing exercise. Yes, the body does get used to changes and so we have to change our training programmes. It makes sense, if you're fitter you have to push yourself harder to get results. The same programme for years will become increasingly less effective. Paula Radcliffe isn't doing the same training she did as a teenager, why would it be any different for anyone else. Sweets obviously aren't the only source of calories. And it's scientific fact that as we grow older our muscle mass depletes more and it's easier to put on weight. That's why experienced athletes in their 60s don't break world records, but they still go for 'good for age' results. I was a fat teenager, it took me to the age of 26 before I could run 10km faster than my dad (who by then was 64).
quote:
We can't win this battle.
Agreed if you're referring to age. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to be fit and healthy. My father-in-law is close to losing his foot, and thus essentially his independence, due to type II diabetes and a preference to have a touch of bread with his butter rather than a smidgen of butter on his bread, for that momentary taste, and then is miserable with diabetic depression the rest of the time. My dad is still running half marathons and is having the time of his life in his retirement despite probably being a stone heavier than he was 15 years ago. I certainly know which lifestyle I'd prefer.
[ 04. July 2006, 14:20: Message edited by: Callan ]
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
NP,
If advertising doesn't effect people's behaviour, why does anyone bother to advertise?
And healthier food is, almost always, more expensive.
(Xpost)
[ 04. July 2006, 13:21: Message edited by: Papio ]
Posted by Newman's Own (# 420) on
:
I am far from being a capitalist, but those who are can use material on this and other recent threads to make a bloody fortune. The stereotypes and contempt can be cleverly manipulated to trade on people's insecurity and increase their self-hatred to a point where one can cast oneself as a Saviour (not like Jesus of Nazareth - perhaps a combination of bullying parent and torturer) and cloak it all under a concern for health.
Queue up, all you fat, lazy slobs. Don't tell me that you haven't opened a packet of crisps in ten years, or that the last time there were sweets in the larder was when you had company last Christmas. I'll help you lose your 'safe' one or two pounds a month this year, then convince you, next year, that you are gaining it all back as healthy muscle.
I won't need to worry that you have other interests - I can teach you to hate yourself so much that you'll want me to sell you 'motivation' and 'self-esteem.' Forget about even attending church - no one will be able to stand the presence of a hypocrite like yourself. Never mind spiritual, intellectual, or creative pursuits - your sentence is to a life that consists only of earning a living and exercising. I need not worry that you might have friends - soon, your sole topic of conversation will be your weight loss efforts, and no one will want the company of anyone so self-absorbed. (You will not detect this, of course. If I can convince you of how disgusting you are, you will feel the need to constantly defend yourself.)
Oh, you cannot fool me. You could not sleep last night, because the hunger was keeping you awake? Liar! You have got to stop kidding yourself. Or maybe I can charge you a bit more, convincing you that you are 'sick.' I could make more on a pathetic neurotic turning to her comfort foods.
You are not entitled to a life. After all, a disgusting slob like yourself is a bad example to everyone, and a strain on the NHS. Everyone can see through you. What, you hit a plateau? Well, at least you're not gaining. You are gaining? Though you still are following the programme? What did you expect? Haven't you used Google lately? Weren't you aware that 'successes' are those who did not gain everything back after the first six months?
Capitalists who wish to employ this plan must target those who already have serious weight problems - because they are unlikely to get down to 'ideal weight.' Get doctors involved - people must not lose any substantial amount of weight, that's 'unsafe.' You can therefore have people with problems that will go on forever, and laugh all the way to the bank.
It is a 'win-win' situation. When you get to the bank, you can further learn how to keep the poor in grave debt out of desperation (I heard they are just as contemptible as the overweight), then convince the middle class that poverty is ahead if they do not buy now. You cannot live in that neighbourhood or wear clothes from last season - then you won't get the promotion! You cannot try, at age 35, to save money that you'll actually have available if you need it - it has to go into retirement accounts, so any crisis today will require a loan.
With a little luck, I can increase contempt for the poor and working class in the process. After all, their debts cannot come from anything except extravagance.
Father Gregory's OP, as far as I can see, was about admitting to responsibility. (And I must add that I did not see the slightest hint of any other element.) Yet some of the turns this thread has taken are of quite another topic.
Posted by Cod (# 2643) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
Cycling - I cycled to work for a year or so, in East London. Please would those who suggest cycling do this - in London, in the rush hour, every day for at least a few months. And then tell me that "Cycling is such a pleasure".
(Cod puts up his fin)
And I'll add that cycling in London is a damn sight better than cycling in Auckland, NZ where cyclists are but few on the roads and motorists are just about incapable of correctly judging the width of their cars.
Posted by I_am_not_Job (# 3634) on
:
Newman's Own - you are most welcome to come down to my local running club track and see all the kids there from the local sink estate who are learning self confidence, teamwork, friendship, a healthy lifestyle and keeping away from drugs and violence and gangs. The crappy diet industry ain't got a look in.
Posted by les@BALM (# 11237) on
:
With plastic credit it too easy, you dont see the money so you dont quantify what you are spending. I set limits on my spending and keep a tight ship both personally and for BALM.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by I_am_not_Job:
Newman's Own - you are most welcome to come down to my local running club track and see all the kids there from the local sink estate who are learning self confidence,
Whoa. I only ever learnt how shit I was at anything physical down on the running track? Self confidence? It shattered what I had.
quote:
teamwork
Yes, I'll grant you that. One kid would hold me down in the showers whilst the other kicked my head in.
quote:
friendship
Yes indeed; knocking the "weeds" around is so friendly.
quote:
a healthy lifestyle
I'm not sure that our national sports obsession is healthy, not socially or mentally, at any rate.
quote:
and keeping away from drugs and violence and gangs. The crappy diet industry ain't got a look in.
I'd rather they'd gone for the gangs when I was a kid. The gangs were usually attacking each other instead of me.
It's not the panacea you're painting it as.
Posted by I_am_not_Job (# 3634) on
:
Karl I somewhat suspect your thinking back to school and enforced PE. Many of us have been there. My local track is not forced on anyone, it's just a community facilty that does a lot of good. People go there out of their own free choice. Just cos you've had some bad experiences in the past doesn't mean it's the same for everyone. How many times do I have to say in my posts I was crap at sport as a kid and hated it, but I've learnt to enjoy being fit and healthy - v different. I know kids now who are working towards stuff like the World Student Games when most of their friends are lucky if they've got a job in Macdonalds. Show a little happiness and respect for them.
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
Cycling - I cycled to work for a year or so, in East London. Please would those who suggest cycling do this - in London, in the rush hour, every day for at least a few months. And then tell me that "Cycling is such a pleasure".
Cycling is such a pleasure. I did it for years, not months, and in every part of London. There's hardly a road in central London or in inner South London that I haven't cycled and I've at least visited just about everywhere else.
OK there are scary bits. Hyde Park Corner can be a hassle and southbound across Vauxhall Bridge is like being in a pinball machine. But on the whole its good fun.
Its not excercise of course, because that would be sport and sport is boring. Just a convenient mode of transport that happens to be bloody good fun.
Posted by LutheranChik (# 9826) on
:
Here in the States PBS has run a series called "Affluenza" that was very good -- hit the nail on the head about how marketers play on people's various motivations in order to make them crave and consume more goods. (And I used to be an advertising major in school, so I know from persuasion.)
Theologian Marva Dawn has also written quite eloquently about consumerism from a faith perspective.
Posted by Nonpropheteer (# 5053) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
NP,
If advertising doesn't effect people's behaviour, why does anyone bother to advertise?
And healthier food is, almost always, more expensive.
(Xpost)
Advertising, like opinion polls, insurance sales, and pollination, works on the chaos theory. Did you know that out of 750 million spam messages sent, only one will generate a sale? A macrobiotic healthnut can watch all the Pizza Hut commercials he wants without fear that he'll be taken over by an irresistable urge to eat pizza.
Temptation exists, mind control does not. Turn off the friggin' television once in a while. Take control of your lives. Or better yet, fight as hard for governmental control over added sugar as people do for gun and drug control.
You're kinda starting to sound like a supervisor at a call center where I once worked. He claimed that if we couldn't sell a particular (useless) insurance product, it was our fault. Had nothing to do with whether the customer wanted or needed it, and never mind that we were cold-calling them at home - we should be able to sell it because we are trained in how to keep control of the conversation and blah blah blah.
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
:
ken - I hate you. In a loving sort of way of course.
I just think that many of those who promote cycling live in places where it is a pleasure to do. But cycling on busy congested roads, at peak hours, is not pleasant at all. It may be good and healthy, and I can appreciate that some people can enjoy it. But for me, it is awful.
Of course, these days, working 30+ miles from home, cycling is not practical. Although I am sure Ken will tell me how he cycled 50 miles into work and then home every day for several years.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
In my case, I'm not sure if it's the 17 miles or the thousand feet of climbing that most deter me
Posted by Janine (# 3337) on
:
Someone ought to test the amount of noxious fumes people breathe in while doing their healthy cycling commute in heavy-traffic areas.
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Janine:
Someone ought to test the amount of noxious fumes people breathe in while doing their healthy cycling commute in heavy-traffic areas.
They did measure that recently in London and - strangely - the study found that people in cars breath in more nasty stuff (particulates?) than pedestrians and cyclists outside. Which doesn't necessarily mean that the amount of polution breathed in by cyclists is negligable, of course, but it is apparently less.
The worst air quality, if I remember correctly, was breathed by people in black taxis, normal private cars came second I think. I don't really understand it, but there you go.
quote:
Originally posted by I_Am_Not_Job:
And anyway, it's not that you didn't lose weight, it's whether you gained weight, or how much more you would have gained if you hadn't done it.
Why would I have gained weight? I don't pile on pounds in the months when it's too dark and too inclement to safely cycle along isolated cross-country converted railway lines. Which, in Scotland, is about 8 months of the year. I presume that, unconciously, I increase my calorie intake upwards to compensate for the extra energy used, and vice versa in winter. Or else my body goes into 'famine' mode - as I'm pretty sure it did during the period I was getting up at 5 for gym-torture every day.
Look, it's nice for you that you've found a way of life you enjoy that incorporates exercise. Good. But just don't evangelise it to people who've tried the same thing, endlessly, and after all due consideration don't enjoy it. Otherwise the (perhaps unintended) implication is that we don't know our own minds, if we just tried harder we'd be just like you. And that implication is really quite irritating, whether it's intended or not.
Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by I_am_not_Job:
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by I_am_not_Job:
I must admit I felt very uncomfortable at a recent Christian Aid week service that was led by a mixture of overweight and obese people begging the congregation to give more money. It was more the dissonance, rather than hypocracy, that got me.
What dissonance? Surely you don't actually believe that these people wouldn't need to collect money from the congregation if they donated their own grocery money instead?
OK. How about incongrous. Big fat person stands up and says 'please feed the starving little children'. I can see the cartoon already.
I guess I'm still not seeing what's so funny about this. They're collecting money for the skinny children, not for themselves. Should only skinny people collect for the skinny and only blind people collect for the blind?
quote:
We're fat because we diet. We're fat because depleted fat cells are desperate to replenish themselves before the next "famine" comes along.
quote:
Don't diet, eat healthily in the first place. Yo-yo dieting never works. Just cabbage soup vs. normal 3 meals a day is obviously going to confuse the body's metabolism.
This is the sort of semantics the diet industry indluges in all the time. Our old eating plan was a "diet" the one they want to sell us is a "healthy lifestyle change."
I've never been on a cabbage soup sort of diet in my life. I just told you that all I did was give up sweets. I did eat three healthy meals a day. I also told you that I lost sixty pounds in one year -- that's a very safe rate of about one pound per week. I don't see how that could "confuse " my metabolism very much more than any other plan.
I'm eating the exact same things now and gaining a pound a week. It's so easy to say that something must be wrong with the plan, too big portions, too many carbs, too much fat -- but it's the exact same thing I lost on last year.
quote:
Jan.1st 2005. I gave up all sweets. Since then not so much as a piece of birthday cake or a spoon of jam has passed my lips. I also began working-out six days a week. By Jan. 1st 2006 I had lost the 60 pounds. At that point, following the same program, my body began to regain.
My body has learned to live on less calories and compensate for the extra activity. I've gained back a pound a month since then. In five years I'll have it all back; only then I'll be just as fat, while having to work-out six days a week and never eating sweets.
quote:
I'm sorry you've struggled, but there are a lot more factors to just not eating sweets and doing exercise. Yes, the body does get used to changes and so we have to change our training programmes. It makes sense, if you're fitter you have to push yourself harder to get results. The same programme for years will become increasingly less effective. Paula Radcliffe isn't doing the same training she did as a teenager, why would it be any different for anyone else. Sweets obviously aren't the only source of calories. And it's scientific fact that as we grow older our muscle mass depletes more and it's easier to put on weight. That's why experienced athletes in their 60s don't break world records, but they still go for 'good for age' results. I was a fat teenager, it took me to the age of 26 before I could run 10km faster than my dad (who by then was 64).
So what you're saying is that every year I need to cut back on my calories a little more and increase my exercise. After a few years of your plan, I would be eating about five hundred calories a day and exercising for eight hours.
Ken just informed us that we only need 30 minutes a day, three times a week and now it seems that my 45 minutes, six times a week isn't enough.
quote:
We can't win this battle.
quote:
Agreed if you're referring to age. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to be fit and healthy. My father-in-law is close to losing his foot, and thus essentially his independence, due to type II diabetes and a preference to have a touch of bread with his butter rather than a smidgen of butter on his bread, for that momentary taste, and then is miserable with diabetic depression the rest of the time. My dad is still running half marathons and is having the time of his life in his retirement despite probably being a stone heavier than he was 15 years ago. I certainly know which lifestyle I'd prefer.
I know which one I would prefer, too. What some of us are trying to say is that it isn't always a matter of preference. It's just possible your father is able to run marathons because he was blessed with good genetic material and a fast metabolism while your father-in-law has a system that doesn't handle carbohydrates very well.(It's more likely the bread than the butter that's hurting him.)
Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by I_am_not_Job:
C'mon, you know the evidence is against you
. (and calling fit people self-righteous is just protecting yourself with insults whatever the evidence presented - no wry smile with finger wagging smiley available
).
Oh and I forgot to add that people who enjoy exercise are self-righteous too, but fortunately it's the sort of thing that doesn't really need pointing out, being obvious when it happens.
Why do you think the whole world is like you? What evidence do you have? Will it matter if a million people come up to you and say, "there is no form of exercise invented that I find enjoyable"? Will you still believe what you want to?
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on
:
Nonpropheteer, you can preach personal responsibility all day long, but it doesn't change the fact that there's got to be something cultural going on when obesity hits epidemic proportions. Yes, whether someone gains weight or loses or stays the same depends on that person's individual choices. But we don't live in a vacuum. Millions and millions of people in the industrialized world are gaining weight at an alarming rate, and it's not because people are overall more stupid and less responsible than they were 30 years ago.
I think the problem is that most of us live in environments to which we are not adapted, and so things that were automatic for millions of years -- getting exercise and eating the most healthy diet available -- no longer work the way they used to. At no other point in human history have so many people needed to choose to get exercise in order to stay healthy instead of just getting that exercise in the normal course of their daily lives. At no other point in human history has there been so much fat and sugar so readily available; people didn't use to have to choose healthy foods -- they ate what was available and were grateful for it. So what we're having to do now is very difficult and not what our bodies and appetites have evolved to do.
Posted by Joan_of_Quark (# 9887) on
:
We are not all exactly the same (gasp). Some people do well on one food plan (whether that's eating really healthy without thinking about it, or a really detailed diet sheet) and others on a different balance. The last ten+ years we've had diet wars going on - an endless cycle of lowfat->lowcarb->lowfat->lowcarb....
BTW, Twilight mentioned the discrepancy between some people saying 20 mins of cardio 3 times per week and others advocating 5 or 6 workouts a week. That's probably the difference between what we allegedly need to protect our hearts and the larger amount being seen as what's necessary to drop fat. Even with the 20 times 3, last time I looked in fitness journals there was a long debate going on about whether it had to be 20 minutes continuous or whether you can bank lots of short pieces of activity - I no longer know whether our collective wisdom is currently at TIS or TISNT on that one. Sigh.
If it IS possible to wreck your metabolism by dieting, lots of people doing that will have been reacting to people around them, possibly including medical people, advising them to get on those crash diets.
Is it me, or is there a fair amount of conflating the "problems" of fat, healthy eating and exercise on this thread? e.g. as far as we can be certain, everyone needs to be fit to protect their heart, yet everywhere I go I hear people talking about exercise almost entirely in terms of how to lose weight. It's only a minority of people who do this magical amount of exercise, and that includes the skinnier people.
A few false moves - whether it's crying into a box of chocolates after a bereavement, or getting into debt when you lose your job - and you can easily end up with a nasty tangle of compounded problems. I think it's a both/and situation - possibly people need to get together to make their areas safer for cycling/kids to play outside, set up food co-ops to get cheap healthy veg to "food deserts", fight back against the ads and the convenience with real knowledge, set up credit unions, etc etc.
(Sorry this got long, must go ride bike...)
Posted by OliviaG (# 9881) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by I_am_not_Job:
Just cos you've had some bad experiences in the past doesn't mean it's the same for everyone. How many times do I have to say in my posts I was crap at sport as a kid and hated it, but I've learnt to enjoy being fit and healthy - v different.
You're right, it's not the same for everyone. I've never, ever experienced any mood-elevating effect from exercise. Personally, I think it may have something to do with the chemistry of depression, because I don't recall any of my depressed friends ever mentioning the experience either. (Not saying any of my fellow Shipmates necessarily feel as I do for the same reason.) I had a doctor - of course she was a runner - who suggested training for a marathon would help my depression. Ever seen someone running and crying at the same time? I ran myself down to 95 pounds and a size 4. After a couple of years of that crap, I went to another doctor - not a runner but a golfer and sailor - and got real, effective help. From my experience, the exercise psycho-pep talk belongs in the same bin as "snap out of it" and "just think cheerful thoughts."
quote:
If I said driving gives you a feeling of freedom, you might not agree with me even after your first 3 or 4 lessons.
Honestly, if I heard anyone say driving gives you a feeling of freedom, I'd say they'd been watching too many car commercials. I've been driving for over thirty years and I still hate it. However, it is a useful skill that makes it possible to do lots of other things. But you said, "Exercise is about a way of life." Would you say, "Driving is about a way of life"?
Yes, people living a modern, sedentary lifestyle probably should make an effort to be more physically active. I_am_not_Job, I think you could be much more persuasive if you kept in mind that for many of us (most?), "exercise" is a means, not an end. And there's a couple of threads in Heaven that are ready for any other suggestions you might have. Cheers, OliviaG
Posted by dosey (# 10259) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
I think the problem is that most of us live in environments to which we are not adapted, and so things that were automatic for millions of years -- getting exercise and eating the most healthy diet available -- no longer work the way they used to. At no other point in human history have so many people needed to choose to get exercise in order to stay healthy instead of just getting that exercise in the normal course of their daily lives. At no other point in human history has there been so much fat and sugar so readily available; people didn't use to have to choose healthy foods -- they ate what was available and were grateful for it. So what we're having to do now is very difficult and not what our bodies and appetites have evolved to do.
I think our bodies have always evolved to do this. A high metabolism puts more oxadative stress on the system, simply the more exercise you do the quicker you die. As we have become more sedentary our bodies have reacted by reducing muscle mass and replacing it with fat .
(btw this reduces metabolism)
Or bodies still love fat and sugar though, (useful for that occasional famine) so salt sugar, and fat are all hedonistic.
So, no really its no one's fault they're fat as it is what evolution has got us to do. Though on that note we are designed to enjoy exercise (having a high muscle density always helps when escaping that T-rex
). So really people who don't enjoy exercise I believe its more to do with thier mindset than NOt being able to enjoy it. some people love the competitive aspect that where they get thier 'high' from.
Posted by muchafraid (# 10738) on
:
I'm not following, dosey.
You say that we are "designed to enjoy exercise," but some people don't exercise because they don't enjoy it. Then you say it's more of a "mindset" thing than not enjoying it. That's sort of confusing.
And isn't enjoyment, by definition, a mindset?
I'm not sure if we were designed to necessarily enjoy exercise. Sure, when we play and run and get our heart rate up, endorphins are released which make us feel good. Hopefully, the "rush" we feel will make us want to continue that behavior. Therefore, I think the enjoyment factor is secondary.
What came first, the chicken or the egg? In this case, I believe it was the chicken (exercise).
Also, since when does exercise cause us to die more quickly? I've never heard that before...
Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Rat:
quote:
Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
I don't buy it, Rat. The most profitable loan surely comes from lending X amount over X years at X interest, and getting it paid back as contracted.
The minute it falls into arrears, someone needs to be paid to chase the debt.
Ah, but at that point the bank sells the debt on to another company. So they don't pay out, they make some money on the deal, on top of the interest and penalties they've already pulled in. And the fact that debt retrieval companies are willing to buy up bad debts would suggest that there's at least some money to be made there too.
I can't really argue the point very well, I don't know enough about it.
Banks must like good payers too, or those of us who're not on the edge of bankruptcy wouldn't be able to get loans and mortgages. But by the same logic, there must be profit to be made from dodgy credit risks, or the cable TV channels wouldn't be loaded down with adverts by companies offering consolidation loans to the indebted. Many of them say outright that they'll lend to people who already have bad credit ratings or county-court judgements against them for bad debt.
Bad debts that are sold, are sold for a fraction of the outstanding balance. It's a risk for the purchaser, but one they are prepared to take. Banks really aren't responsible for what they do.
The lenders who advertise to the "bad credit rating" customer do bother me. BUT they aren't banks. At least not here in Australia. They are non-bank lenders and I think they are a real concern.
Posted by The Great Gumby
quote:
Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
I don't buy it, Rat. The most profitable loan surely comes from lending X amount over X years at X interest, and getting it paid back as contracted.
Depends what charges you make for missed or late payments. Let's say I lend you £1,000 to be paid back in 10 monthly payments of £105. That'll net me a profit of £50 in 10 months. But suppose you're struggling to pay it off, and one month (say month 6) you can't make your payment. I, as your bank manager, charge you, say, £20 for the missed payment, and charge interest to your outstanding debt to cover the missed payment, which could be at a punitive rate of interest, but for the sake of argument I'll be generous and call it another £4 for each remaining month, so £20 in total. I get my money back in 11 months instead of 10, but I make £90 profit instead of £50.
I've not done anything in that example that would be unusual, in fact I've been fairly generous in some of my charges compared with some real-life examples, but I've substantially increased my profit for very little effort on my part. There's no need to "chase" debt at this sort of level, because provision for these charges will be built into the loan agreement - generally, you can just send a new statement and ask the borrower to call you to discuss the missed payment. Word the letter in sufficiently threatening terms and they'll be desperate to talk to you.
In charging any fee for late payments, you still need to be repaid ultimately. If your customer goes bankrupt, you can charge all you like, but you almost certainly won't get paid.
If the borrower couldn't service the debt in the first place then, at least here in Australia, s/he could bring a claim with the relevant dispute resolution body (all banks have to belong to such a scheme) or to the relevant tribunal. If the claim was substantiated, the customer pay back the debt with no interest and no fees. So no profit for the bank.
Non-bank lenders might not be subject to such stringent rules (although the Consumer Credit Code would certainly impose that sort of standard on them).
I'd have thought the UK has a similar system, though I could be wrong.
[ 05. July 2006, 09:11: Message edited by: Callan ]
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
:
Did anyone else see "Tax the Fat" last night ( UK TV )? Boy did that annoy me. Somebody rather simplistically suggesting that those who are clinically obese should be taxed, to pay for their medical care.
Sadly, they did show some "Its Not My Fault" fatties. Including a chap who has slimmed down to 45 Stone. But he missed the complexity of issues that drive obesity. Yes, people should get more exercise, and improve their diet. If you have the time and resources to do this then all well and good, but the one factor that he didn't consider was the time taken to eat healthily ( for a working family ). And he didn't address the psychology of why people overeat.
His proposal to simply tax people was, IMO, mindlessly stupid, and ignoring the real issues about why people are becoming fatter.
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
Well, as Ruth said, it makes little or no sense to say it is purely the individual when actually the problem is increasing in just about every community in just about first world, capitalist country under the sun.
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
In charging any fee for late payments, you still need to be repaid ultimately. If your customer goes bankrupt, you can charge all you like, but you almost certainly won't get paid.
You are right, of course. But most people who get into money trouble don't go bankrupt, that's the last resort. Most people who finally get sensible advice will be encouraged to come to some manageable repayment agreement with their creditors (the UK Citzen's Advice Bureau will help negotiate this and creditors normally agree to small but regular payments). So the creditor will eventually get paid, the borrower will eventually get debt free, but a loan that should have taken 2 years to repay may take 8 years. This is hugely profitable to the lender.
Another thing I know often happens (from friends who've had debt trouble) is that people get into the habit of paying their various creditors turn about. Pay this credit card this month, the mortgage next month, they can't pay everyone so whoever is screaming loudest gets the available money. Despite the nasty letters, lenders will let you do this almost indefinitely as long as they continue to get some payments... the interest and penalties pile up but do eventually get paid.
The lenders can afford to write off the small number of borrowers who actually go bankrupt, because they make so much from the majority who struggle, get in arrears, but eventually repay.
I think (but may be wrong) that the conservative government in the '80s removed pretty much all regulation on the behaviour of lenders here - the market is pretty much a free-for-all.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
Well, as Ruth said, it makes little or no sense to say it is purely the individual when actually the problem is increasing in just about every community in just about first world, capitalist country under the sun.
And she's spot on about the evolutionary aspect as well. We evolved in an environment where sugar and fat were quite hard to get hold of. So we evolved to like it, to get as much of it as we could whenever we could. That makes it extremely difficult to break a sweet tooth or a taste for the frying pan.
We also evolved the ability to hold on to the fat we'd managed to lay down, and to replenish it as soon as possible.
I do remember a programme on the box recently where it had been found that basal metabolic rates don't actually vary much between people, regardless of their weight. They also didn't find that the majority of overweight people ate more either. What they found was that skinnies fidget more. Honest. When sitting down they'd be tapping their feet, drumming their fingers, shifting position. Those prone to obesity were far stiller. And that seemed to make a lot of the difference. I'll try to find some of the evidence for this from somewhere. It fits in with the tendancy towards middle-age spread - as we age, we tend towards less fidgeting and more sitting still. Gives us varicose veins as well, but I digress.
None of this doesn't mean I'm not open to suggestions. However:
1) competitive sport of any kind is out, as whilst not actually dyspraxic I'm way, way, way at the bottom of the hand eye coordination curve, as anyone who's ever seen how fast I get through crockery can testify. People hate playing sports with me because it's too easy.
2) I can't run. I have small lungs, and I get out of breath after a quarter of a mile and get a stitch soon before or after this; despite the lies told by PE teachers this cannot be "run off" and I have to stop before I collapse from the pain and anoxia.
3) Gym membership is prohibitively expensive.
Suggestions on a postcard, please.
[ 05. July 2006, 09:16: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
Posted by The Great Gumby (# 10989) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
In charging any fee for late payments, you still need to be repaid ultimately. If your customer goes bankrupt, you can charge all you like, but you almost certainly won't get paid.
Exactly, which is why the less scrupulous lenders try to walk the tightrope and pick up the people who will struggle to pay, but manage it in the end. It usually takes an awful lot of debt to drive someone to bankruptcy, and no one wants to be declared bankrupt, so once a loan is taken out, both the lender and the borrower have the same aim of making sure Mr B doesn't go bankrupt. The borrower's usually got far more to lose from bankruptcy, which is why the lender can get so much out of it.
People get into stupid amounts of debt not by taking out enormous loans they'll never pay back, but by taking out small loans, which they struggle with, then slightly larger ones to cover that, struggle a bit more, and so on. A cynical lender will count on that. If a borrower starts to really struggle, and looks at any stage like going under, you arrange an appointment to consolidate the outstanding debt into a form they might be able to manage, or put enough pressure on them that they consolidate it themselves with an even bigger loan from someone else. It's probably not a good move from their point of view, and it only delays the inevitable, but the lender gets paid off and the problem of bad debt becomes someone else's problem.
[ETA: And what Rat said]
[ 05. July 2006, 09:26: Message edited by: The Great Gumby ]
Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on
:
I must admit I read the thread title and thought, "Serious discussion or crie de coeur?" But then I remembered Father's svelte figure and decided it must be a discussion. (
)
It reminds me of a story I heard from a former colleague. He'd been working with a family who were deeply in debt. Somehow or other (don't know how, because this sounds highly irregular) he'd arranged that next time there was money coming their way, he'd pick up the cheque, take it to them, get it cashed with them and sit there while they used it to pay off some of their debts.
The day came, and my colleague went to pick up the cheque, only to be told that it had, in error, been sent out the previous day. He raced around to the house, to find the family....
.... watching their brand new television.
Yes, you can go on till the cows come home about "poor poor people". But there's just no helping some folk.
Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on
:
Well, I have to say that the banking system in other places sounds like a bit of a worry. Working in an area that sorts out banking problems on a daily basis, (and, NO, I do not work for any bank and there's probably more than one that dislikes me intensely), I am not convinced in the slightest of any conspiracy to draw in the near-bankrupt in Australia.
We have a system of negative credit reporting and, so far as I have seen (after years of doing what I do) no bank will touch anyone with a negative credit listing.
I see negligent lending. I tell banks that they have to write off lots and lots of dollars in debt. But I've never seen any policy to do so or to woo bad debtors.
Makes me sort of glad that I live here.
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
1) competitive sport of any kind is out, as whilst not actually dyspraxic I'm way, way, way at the bottom of the hand eye coordination curve, as anyone who's ever seen how fast I get through crockery can testify. People hate playing sports with me because it's too easy.
See, this is where I have difficulty with people who blythly claim that sport builds self esteem, or that the 'competitive aspect' is enjoyable. Sure, that might be so if you can aspire to some basic level of competence! For a naturally competitive person, continually losing is not fun.
I have the agility and co-ordination of a mossy rock. Catching or hitting flying objects is a near impossibility. Swimming, which I try to do out of duty once a week, is mainly an exercise in concentration, otherwise I get mixed up and breath while my head is underwater. And I fall over or run into things, a lot. Fast things like running or squash nearly always result in me getting my feet mixed up, falling over, and getting hurt, or clattering into a wall and getting hurt. And you should have seen me on the treadmill at the gym - anything above a brisk walk is an accident waiting to happen.
For example, with friends I once played badminton weekly for 2 years. In that time I never won a game (getting a single point was a memorable occasion) and regularly hurt myself. People quite naturally didn't want to play me, though they'd never have said so - it was boring and embarassing. I dropped out of the game when shortage of courts meant that we started having to play doubles every week. These people were friends and we were far past the age of sports related cruelty, but it's still humiliating to realise that people are quietly and politely manouvering to avoid having you as a partner.
So I'm supposed to enjoy activities that I'm naturally bad at (and, no, practise doesn't help) and where I regularly get hurt. And continually coming last is supposed to raise my self esteem! I must be the wrong sort of masochist.
And I've been thinking about the cycling thing... What I enjoy about cycling is that I get to see beautiful places I wouldn't otherwise, see the wildlife and countryside changing without scaring off the squirrels, and ocassionally I get to go 'whee' downhill really fast. The actual exercise part is the usual unrewarding slog, but there are enough ancillary benefits (squirrels and whee) to make it worthwhile. I'm still crap at it, though.
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
I enjoy some forms of competition but not others.
And i agree that sporty types are often too quick to assume that we must be like them, really...
Not that us non-sporty types ever do the same thing, eh?
Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
Not that us non-sporty types ever do the same thing, eh?
No, we know from painful experience how much unlike us the sporty types are.
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
Yes, in a great many ways.
Still doesn't everyone to some extent have a tendancy to assume that others agree with them and know what they mean? I'm not saying that you, or I, totally fal for that or that we always fall for it to any extent - just that I think someone who has never fallen for it to any extent or at any time is a pretty unusual individual.
The sporty chavs were the ones that beat me up at school, though. i confess that are still not my favourite people.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
Rat puts it rather well. I don't think many sporty types can actually imagine what it's like to know that no matter how much you practice, you will rarely be able to hit a tennis ball served to you, and even more rarely actually get it into the opponent's court. Scoring a point? You must be joking.
I spent days trying to learn to serve. I could get it into the right square on the other side about 50% of the time. But only if I hit it really, really slowly.
Self esteem? Went walkies long ago as far as anything involving co-ordination is concerned.
I found people neither wanted to partner me (guaranteed to lose) or play against me in singles (just boring; they would ace every ball when it was their serve, and I would usually double fault on my serve, or serve it so weekly they just smashed it straight past me). Where's the gain in that?
And that's just one sport. The others were the same though. Rugby scrums went round and round in circles if I was in them. I couldn't catch other people to tackle them. Cricket? Usually caught and bowled first or second ball. Couldn't catch, and couldn't throw far enough to field on the boundary. Bowling? Every ball a no-ball or a wide, or both. Football? Scored one goal in all my years at school.
So if I and people like me are somewhat dismissive of this whole physical excercise business, there's a bloody good reason.
[ 05. July 2006, 13:56: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
Posted by Ethne Alba (# 5804) on
:
It's official then.
I filled in a survey last week that asked questions about my health. No danger signs there.
By the end discovered that I must be dreafully unfit as I :
* haven't joined a gym,
* do not visit a gym,
* do not participate in organised sprting activities,
* do not go jogging,
* do not take part in regular fitness regieme at home,
* do not walk/ cycle to work,
* do not eat brown rice and pasta.....
.....etc!
Came away feeling out of sorts with the world. So bought a chocolate bar out of Total Spite.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
I'd go for the brown rice if it didn't take all day to eat. I don't think it improves health of itself; it's just you spend so long trying to eat the brown rice that you don't have time to eat anything unhealthy.
Posted by Nonpropheteer (# 5053) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
Well, as Ruth said, it makes little or no sense to say it is purely the individual when actually the problem is increasing in just about every community in just about first world, capitalist country under the sun.
Producers don't sell us candy because they want to sell it, rather because they know we want it. First world countries are fat because there are far too many sedintary activities that the populace does for enjoyment. Our social circles are as likely to be url as irl. We have more access to more fattening food and less desire or need to exercise.
Posted by Ethne Alba (# 5804) on
:
brown rice costs more, takes forever to cook and looks manky.
However it would be very good for me................
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
:
Here's another complete and total klutz who actually got put in remedial Phys ed (how embarrassing is that?). I couldn't even play ping pong till I was 25. No hand-eye coordination whatsoever, and very loose limbs (to the point of dislocation often). Also one leg not straight (knee points in) with all the expected results when it comes to running, biking, etc. About the only sport I'm good at is swimming, and I think that's because being boneless, lumpy and blind is an asset there.
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on
:
I too used to drive tennis coaches to tears by watching a slowly travelling ball come towards me, pass me and then swing my racquet. If hand/eye coordination bad, then balance even worse.
But show me the sporty type who can knit with 20+ yarns simultaneously, or half a dozen elements of a meal together perfectly while simultaneously swigging a glass of wine.
[ 05. July 2006, 15:28: Message edited by: Firenze ]
Posted by magdalenegospel (# 11619) on
:
The thing, sports wise, that got me into it was adult trampolining. I was incredibly unco-ordinated for the first year, but had made friends, and stuck at it.
I learnt to dive as well, and between the two, found that I could enjoy sports. Trampolining, for some reason, alleviates dyslexia, and helps with co-ordination. I don't understand it, but I have 4 friends who'd testify to it.
As for being fat and being in debt, http://www.flylady.net saved my bacon. Both being fat and having poor financial skills seem to boil down to a lack of routine on my part, and since I moved a couple of weeks ago, which enabled me to have a solid routine, I've already lost half a stone without trying. There's an interesting programme on R4 (All in the Mind) that had something on Routine, and how it affects people in their ability to lose weight.
It's efficient to have a habit, but habits aren't necessarily efficient in themselves and need to be refined. My experience was that I cut out sugar, but dairy consumption crept up over a year.
Just as a good prayer routine is something that is developed and refined (not necessarily added to) same with diet and exercise.
Then again, that's my experience, and I know that for some people it's not been about routine (eatin regularly) but about having a variety of food, freshly cooked.
I would argue that sport for the sake of sport's a waste of time. Sport to make friends, sport to get somewhere - great. Going to the gym because you've got buddies there - fine.
Going just because you feel you ought to go isn't good for you.
As far as losing weight and fitness is concerned, Yoga helped enormously, because it made me aware of what I was hungry for, and helped my body work more efficiently, although at face value it's not a CV workout.
And cycling in London is fun. I did it regularly for years, till some **** nabbed my bike.
Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by magdalenegospel:
The thing, sports wise, that got me into it was adult trampolining. I was incredibly unco-ordinated for the first year, but had made friends, and stuck at it.
When I was at school, I was one of those who were always chosen last to be on a team, uncoordinated overweight geek that I was. I would rather sit on the bleachers during gym class, feigning a stiff neck or an irritable bowel, than be the laughingstock of the jocks.
But then one day they brought in a trampoline. Something new, different, fascinating. I loved it! Bouncing up and down on that thing, moving around, changing direction, etc. seemed so incredibly easy -- and fun! I had finally found something to make gym class worthwhile for me.
But all the jocks hated it, and after that one day we never saw the trampoline again!
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
Karl, what sporty types need to imagine is not how we feel when ask to tackle a football off Jonny Goodatsports, but how they would feel if asked to sing in front of their entire office, or appear on Mastermind or engage in some activety they find difficult or impossible in front of people who find it easy.
That should solve the difficulty they have in understanding what we are saying.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
Papio, you have it.
Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on
:
When I found out that the diet/gym companies use "natural athletic types" that had been in the hospital or for some other reason had been off their game and got fat, took pictures of them for the "before" shot, and then let them do what they loved to do naturally which is to say EXERCISE LIKE HELL until they looked all buff and trim then took the "After" shot, I knew that society was completely fucked in the head with regards to weight. Oh and of course they make them sign non-disclosure agreements so they don't admit this.
Which is not to say we shouldn't eat better and/or exercise. I am a happy athletic lazyass that had to make the conversion to a gym and stick with it lately. I am trying to eat better too. But will I ever be able to look like a muscle bound hard body? No.
Some of us have bodies that will be pear shaped. Some of us will have bodies that are apple shaped. And some of us will look like Mr./Ms. Olympia. The latter shitheads should thank the gods and keep their fucking opinions to themselves about how the rest of us should look.
And fashion magazines? God spare us from women and men that expect models to look like boys and crack whores. I'd like to force feed the fucking models until fashion magazines have nothing but Size 10 to choose from. Especially Kate "Crack Whore" Moss.
P.S. Fashionfuckinistas, more C or D-cups please, thanksbunches.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
A few comments:
--There are many reasons for being overweight, and they're not always under an individual's control.
--I've heard on the news many times that the most frequent reason for bankruptcy here in the US is healthcare bills. We don't have national insurance, many people have no insurance at all, and those who do have it may not be able to afford the co-pays. Plus the bankruptcy laws have recently been tightened, so it's harder to discharge your debt...even if you have excellent reasons for doing so.
Here's a Reader's Digest view of my situation: I pushed myself to work for many years, despite health problems. It was very important to me to be self-supporting. The job market was leaning towards temporary employment at the time, so I had a series of temp jobs (some as long as several years), with no insurance. I saved up money, but repeatedly had to use it for medical expenses. When I finally got private insurance, it was much more expensive than an employer's policy would've been--and. of course, the price went up frequently over the years.
I'd avoided credit cards like the plague. But, having gone through periods of unemployment due to the job market and dealing with worsening health, I finally decided I needed a safety net. So I got credit cards.
I got on disability, but there were waiting periods, etc., and I had to pay for both basic survival things and medical co-pays, deductibles, and such. My private insurance was nearly $600/mo. at one point. They wouldn't let me apply for a lower cost plan; and, with my health problems, I probably wouldn't have been accepted elsewhere. FINALLY, they put me on a lower cost plan, with a higher deductible.
In the last several years, I've run up megadebt for basic stuff. I might well have been out on the street otherwise--or unable to get my many assorted medications, and too sick to take care of myself at all. I've got some other medical benefits now...but I'm caught in a mess where if one benefit increases slightly, they'll decrease another one greatly. I've recently gone from 0 share of cost for one program to several hundred dollars a month. Legal folks are looking into it; but the reality is that many people are in my position, and the system doesn't care.
I've spoken with a credit counselor. He was shocked by my situation, didn't think bankruptcy would work for me, and suggested trying to negotiate a temporary lowering of fees with the credit card companies.
This is just to illustrate that a person can be dedicated to being self-supporting, to paying off bills, etc.--but it may not work out.
--Re exercise: I'm another one for whom it's hard. I'm in bed most of the time, due to health problems.
For those asking about alternatives, you might check out t'ai chi, chi gong, and gentle forms of yoga. (Like the book "Gentle Yoga", written for folks who need adapted techniques.)
Posted by Kelly Alves (# 2522) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
When I found out that the diet/gym companies use "natural athletic types" that had been in the hospital or for some other reason had been off their game and got fat, took pictures of them for the "before" shot, and then let them do what they loved to do naturally which is to say EXERCISE LIKE HELL until they looked all buff and trim then took the "After" shot, I knew that society was completely fucked in the head with regards to weight. Oh and of course they make them sign non-disclosure agreements so they don't admit this.
Which is not to say we shouldn't eat better and/or exercise. I am a happy athletic lazyass that had to make the conversion to a gym and stick with it lately. I am trying to eat better too. But will I ever be able to look like a muscle bound hard body? No.
Some of us have bodies that will be pear shaped. Some of us will have bodies that are apple shaped. And some of us will look like Mr./Ms. Olympia. The latter shitheads should thank the gods and keep their fucking opinions to themselves about how the rest of us should look.
And fashion magazines? God spare us from women and men that expect models to look like boys and crack whores. I'd like to force feed the fucking models until fashion magazines have nothing but Size 10 to choose from. Especially Kate "Crack Whore" Moss.
P.S. Fashionfuckinistas, more C or D-cups please, thanksbunches.
Try size 4. I recently saw a diet pill ad where the gleeful testimonial was of a size 10 lady rejoicing that she ahd dropped to a size 4.
(oh and the "before-and--after" setup you describe also helps the testimonials say truthfully, "and I didn't change my diet or excercise habits at all!"
My theory is that the garment industry wants to cut costs on fabric, so they are enlisting the diet industry's help.
In any case-- I was put on a steroid inhaler for asthma a few years back, and on steriod treatment for acne much more recently. They had a devastating effect on both my appetite and my metabolism.
Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on
:
I just watched "The devil wears Prada" this last weekend. People think that the asshole boss Miranda is the worst part. Oh no, hearing the Size 4's calling a Size 6 fat about drove me to kill.
Posted by Telepath (# 3534) on
:
I was by far the last to get picked for teams, and my gym teacher brought my mother in for a meeting especially to tell her that I couldn't run fast, was clumsy, and got out of breath quickly.
I remained an extreme klutz until my early twenties, when, I believe, a combination of preternaturally ideal teaching, and brain maturity, improved matters somewhat.
Of course, I was also in a situation of having long been accustomed to humiliation on a daily basis, and to a severe lack of lifeskills that others took for granted. It wasn't like I could avoid humiliation by staying out of dance class, you see, so I might as well go, and accept whatever humiliation came my way. Nor did I expect to be good at it, in contrast to some others who seemed mortified that they didn't already know how to do the thing they'd come to class to learn to do. So you could say that there were others who didn't have the advantages I'd had.
Anyway, if it hadn't turned out that I improved my skills in an unexpected area, I would have followed my plan to go power walking and running and doing toning exercises at home. That's what I did after dance classes became logistically unfeasible. I knew I could walk, and I knew I could run for at least part of the time. I also didn't particularly expect to enjoy it, I just knew it was one of those things I had to do. If ball games, or public gymnasiums, or teamwork, or co-ordination, are sources of failure and embarrassment, it is usually possible to find some kind of exercise that avoids those things.
Posted by Janine (# 3337) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Ethne Alba:
brown rice costs more, takes forever to cook and looks manky.
However it would be very good for me................
Yes it does cost a little more -- but not much, and less than the "special" white rices.
It doesn't seem to take any more time to cook if you get a rice cooker, an electric steamer.
You can put in the rice and springwater, distilled, tap -- or even other liquids -- fat-free spicy chicken broth -- coconut milk -- whatever you like, according to directions --
Then leave it there on the countertop and wander off to do what else you have to do -- it's not you hanging over the stove cooking it.
And it wouldn't look "manky" if we were not spoiled, having been exposed to one basic type of washed-out hulled blah write rice all our lives.
Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on
:
Yes, but it tastes manky too.
Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on
:
Many people on this thread have mentioned that cheap foods tend to be unhealthy and healthy foods tend to be expensive. Something I was surprised no one mentioned is that it's not just a matter of whether a food contains sugar and fat - it's what kind of sugar and fat.
We're all starting to hear about trans-fats & hydrogenated oils, which are particularly bad. Many diet products (I shouldn't name brands, right?) like the shakes or energy bars contain hydrogenated fats, yet are marketed as healthy! Hydrogenated fats are cheaper because of their water content, but they're being linked to all kinds of health problems.
Another ingredient that's problematic is high-fructose corn syrup. This is a modified sweetener that's much worse than plain old fashioned sugar. Food manufacturers switched to it to save money, so even manufactured foods that once were bad because of sugar content are now even worse because of HFCS. Examples are non-diet sodas, fruit juices (that aren't 100% juice), jams and jellies (that aren't 100% "spreadable fruit"), and so forth. Pancake syrup is another example. You can buy a 32-oz. bottle of pancake syrup around here for about $3.50 or less. But it's high fructose corn syrup with some maple flavoring. To buy pure maple syrup, which is healthier, costs over $10 for half the amount. High fructose corn syrup is now thought to actually cause type 2 diabetes, and lead to greater obesity than other sweeteners. (google it for the research.) But in the past, the same foods didn't contain these cheaper, modified ingredients. So unhealthy foods were still healthier than they are now, and eating them wouldn't make you as fat.
So that's one more example of how food manufacturers do bear some of the blame - they're using ingredients that are really bad for our health because they're cheap and don't cut into the profits as much as more natural, healthier ingredients. To get foods with the healthier ingredients, you have to spend a lot more money, and in many cases, go to a special health food store.
Anyone who's ever lived in an area that's predominately low-income knows that it's next to impossible to get healthier foods in those areas, especially if, as some have mentioned earlier, you don't have a car.
And people often don't have the information they need. Food manufacturers aren't going to volunteer information about how unhealthy their foods are. In the case of trans fats, there was enough of a public demand for foods that don't contain it, that many foods added that information to their labels. Maybe we all need to start pressuring the food manufacturers directly and let them know that we're reading their labels and avoiding certain products.
Posted by churchgeek (# 5557) on
:
Sorry for the double-post, but this is pertaining to a different aspect of this multi-stranded thread.
Just to chime in with others...
I always weighed about 115 pounds from the age of 14 to the age of 28. Then I started taking an antidepressant and mood stabilizer. Turns out I was skinny because my lack of interest in food and tendency to starve myself was a symptom of the depression. The pills put on weight, plus getting rid of the depression that made me starve myself got me eating more, and also turning 30 probably involved a metabolism change as it normally does. Plus I had a desk job (although I had for several years before without gaining weight).
My exercise habits (ie, none) didn't change, but I gained 60 pounds in the first 6 years. I'm 34 now and weigh 180! I have to admit, I was underweight to start with. I also think it's more about how you look and feel than the numbers on the scale. I look fatter than I'd like to, and I don't have a lot of energy, but then again, I never did. I had a higher metabolism, plus the regular cycles of hypomania, but I never had much stamina.
I tried going to a gym and found it prohibitively boring. I mostly did the weights to try to build muscle, and then took walks around my neighborhood for cardio exercise, since that's so much more interesting than those stationary machines. I would also take stairs instead of elevators, but it never got any easier.
A year ago (this coming Saturday!) I moved out here to CA to go to school, and I was really excited to not have to bring a car with me. I immediately started walking more, only taking the bus for long distances or when I needed to get somewhere quickly. Instead of losing weight, or increasing my metabolism, or increasing my energy levels, or anything nice like that, all I did was develop plantar fasciitis. I'm trying not to let that get in the way of my walking, but it does.
I'm a student now, and work on weekends, at a job that has me active & on my feet. Also, I have a lot of hill-climbing. The hill climbing still hasn't gotten any easier, but I do get the endorphin high - also the aches and sweat and occasional asthma attack... But no weight loss yet!
I think what RuthW said above is dead on - that we evolved for certain conditions and a certain lifestyle (allowing of course that there is a lot of variation in people depending on their ethnic and family backgrounds) and we are now in a completely different situation. I think we should try our best, but not allow ourselves to be beat up for our failures. Also, I think people should seek first to be helpful, and never judgmental, of others.
Here's an example: I had a roommate in college who had perfect skin. She believed it was due completely to her regimen: once a day she cleaned her face with rubbing alcohol. That was it. No other cleansing, moisturizers, anything. As someone (I don't remember who!) above noted, people often credit themselves with good health when it actually comes naturally to them. As someone else wisely noted above, it's not to your credit to resist what doesn't tempt you! And it doesn't help, either, to make everything a moral issue. In earlier centuries, and even in my lifetime in certain religious circles, my bipolar illness used to be a moral issue - the depression would be some kind of demonic oppression that I was giving in to, and the hypomanic symptoms (losing my temper, swearing, being irritable and short with people, etc.) were obvious moral failings. My only response to that is that without any effort on my part, once I started taking a few pills for it, all of those moral flaws of mine disappeared completely! But if I go off my pills, they come back. What moral failings do we see in others that in a future century they'll have pills for, I wonder?
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by churchgeek:
You can buy a 32-oz. bottle of pancake syrup around here for about $3.50 or less. But it's high fructose corn syrup with some maple flavoring. To buy pure maple syrup, which is healthier, costs over $10 for half the amount.
OK, important things first. You're in California, dude -- buy your real maple syrup at Trader Joe's, not the supermarket. It'll be a lot less expensive.
I'm totally with you on the hydrogenated oils and high fructose corn syrup. When my co-worker used to try to feed me Entenmann's pastries, I would chant, "Hydrogenated soybean oil! High fructose corn syrup!" She doesn't do that anymore, though; she's been diagnosed with diabetes.
Americans: next time you're at the grocery store, see if you can buy a loaf of bread with no hydrogenated oil and no high fructose corn syrup. After examining every single loaf on the shelves at my local Ralph's a few years ago, I bought a machine and started making my own bread.
Posted by Ethne Alba (# 5804) on
:
Y';know Janine..you are right.
I just don't like it.
And therein lies the rub.
I don't actually Want to change. Enough to do it.
Posted by CrookedCucumber (# 10792) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Suggestions on a postcard, please.
I'm not a `sporty' person, by any means. I hated sport passionately until I discovered karate at the age of about 14. 30-odd years later I'm still hooked. Of course, being the kind of person I am, I've probably only acquired the same skills in my 30 years of training that a natural athlete would get in a year or two.
My inability to make progress at the same rate as the sporty folks bothered me when I was a kid, but it doesn't bother me these days. We are all as nature made us, after all. I don't beat myself up about it -- why should I: it's more fun to beat the other guy up
From a fitness-increase-per-hour perspective, I don't find martial arts as effective as running. But I despise running, so martial arts works out better for me in the long run.
In short: try karate or some other martial art. This kind of training in nothing like football, or running, or the other stuff we learned to hate at school.
Some other random thoughts:
1. People are different. I can remain reasonably fit and not too fat by careful eating and regular exercise. But some people can't. It's wrong to harangue these folks.
2. Way, way back in my days as a research cardiologist, I saw a surprisingly large number of sick hearts belonging to very fit people. These people usually turned out to be very dedicated athletes. But the type and intensity of exercise that an `ordinary' person with a day-job is likely to perform is unlikely to have significant long-term health dis-benefits.
3. It's true that people whose non-exercise energy needs are higher tend to be more `fidgety' than people with lower energy needs. But, from a bimechanical perspective, the fidgetiness itself is not enough to account for the discrepancy. More likely the fidgetiness is a consequence of the higher metabolic rate, not a cause.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
I must find the research base this programme was based on. It did find that the overweight people did not have a lower metabolic rate than the skinnies, despite the received wisdom.
Posted by Keren-Happuch (# 9818) on
:
I saw an article in a magazine about ways to increase your exercise without noticing it - things like taking the stairs rather than the lift, but also opening doors rather than walking through automatic ones, doing the washing up by hand rather than in a dishwasher etc. It also mentioned that fidgeting was a good way to burn calories. Unfortunately I'm already a fidget and we don't have a dishwasher, so it doesn't help much!
Someone asked why people keep eating when they're already full. When I was an angsty teenager I used to comfort eat a lot. You know that it'll make you fat, you know you feel bloated and uncomfortable but you keep doing it anyway. I used to scour the cupboards for something to eat thinking, "oh well, may as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb". Trouble is, even though that's not a problem any more, it's still hard to shift the weight that resulted from it.
Posted by CrookedCucumber (# 10792) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I must find the research base this programme was based on. It did find that the overweight people did not have a lower metabolic rate than the skinnies, despite the received wisdom.
We have to be a bit careful with concepts like metabolic rate. Unless you're talking about basal MR -- which is really a notional concept anyway -- there are too many variables in people's habits to make person-to-person comparison meaningful.
Basal MR is, in theory, comparable between individuals but, as I said, it corresponds to a state that few people (at least, few healthy people) ever encounter -- unconscious and starved.
Now it's certainly true that if I somehow put on two stones in weight, my basal MR would increase, not decrease. This is uncontroversial. What is controversial is whether person-to-person variation in basal MR is connected with a tendency to obesity or not.
The reason it is controversial is that it's very difficult to study properly in humans. It is easy enough to study people who are obese; but this is unhelpful because, as I've said, an obese person will have a higher basal MR than the same person would have if he were thin. The trick is to find a bunch of people of the same height, body composition, weight, and gender, who are not obese, and make them live identical lives, including identical food consumption. Then see who gets fat and who doesn't. This has been done in animals, with variable results; and there is the added complication of figuring out whether the animal results generalize to humans.
I think we all know thin, lazy people who seem to eat a great deal, and fat, active people who seem to eat very little. The thin person must (by definition) have a higher `metabolic rate' (that is, total energy expenditure) or a lower rate of nutrional absorption than the fat person. Whether the main contribution to the higher overall metabolic rate is thermogenesis, or insensible exercise (`fidgitiness', increased muscle tone, etc) or something else is not obvious.
Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on
:
At the end of the day, what contributes most to a person's weight, is how much that person eats.
You can eat all the brown rice you want, but it will make you just as fat as white rice (though your poo might not be so interesting with the white variety, but if you spend time examining that sort of thing, you really should be getting out more).
You can eat a donut a day, or you can eat one a week or you can eat a donut a month. The difference will show.
Exercise is important and, funnily enough, the more you weigh (meaning the more you have to lug around), the harder it is and the less pleasurable (or more revolting) it is.
Try carrying around a 5kg bag of potatoes for an hour. Carry it everywhere with you. That 5kgs on your body will be just as hard to lug around, even if evenly spread.
The best (and really only) way to lose weight is to eat less. Seems to me that the easiest thing to do is to look at what's on your plate every time you eat (assuming that you eat too much) and throw half of it into the bin before starting. If you do this, the potatoes will come off easily and walking/running/riding etc will be a much more pleasant experience.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
LATA - there's nothing "easy" about being hungry to the point of feeling nauseous.
Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on
:
Maybe you'd better get used to the 5kg bag effect.
Hunger is normal. Starvation is not. But everyone should get really hungry before a meal. It makes eating worthwhile.
People stuff themselves all day, on the basis of a bit of a craving.
I have this notion that humans must be preprogrammed to cark it early. We have the medical knowledge to keep ourselves alive for much longer than ever before, and so humans are now eating and drinking so much that they will still all die at 60 of heart failure and cirrhosis.
They need to be more hungry more often.
[ 06. July 2006, 11:04: Message edited by: Left at the Altar ]
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
Frankly, if it came down to having stomach cramps all day and being on the verge of throwing up, or lugging the bag of potatoes, I'll take the potatoes.
I don't eat when I'm not hungry. I only eat what I know will keep me going until the next meal. But I still am slowly gaining as I approach 40.
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
Exercise is important and, funnily enough, the more you weigh (meaning the more you have to lug around), the harder it is and the less pleasurable (or more revolting) it is.
Try carrying around a 5kg bag of potatoes for an hour. Carry it everywhere with you. That 5kgs on your body will be just as hard to lug around, even if evenly spread.
I don't think it's quite as simple as that. I was a normal sized child, and hated and was bad at sports even then. I was probably at my thinnest ever during the period when I was asked to leave both ballet and scottish country dancing classes for being too clumsy and hopeless to teach.
And I was probably at my biggest (just back from working in the US!) when I discovered that cycling wasn't too unpleasant.
I've just realised I've made myself sound like some kind of fairy elephant on this thread - just as well nobody ever pays attention to anything I say.
I'm a klutz, but not immovably massive. Like Twilight, I put on about a stone, maybe more, after giving up smoking and have never been able to shift it permanently, it just keeps coming back. But that was pretty much unrelated to the amount of exercise I was doing before and after and during giving up.
Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on
:
But my point is, that exercise itself is unlikely to shift that weight. You can exercise all you like, but if you eat too much, you will probably still look like any fit person who eats a lot - like a weightlifter or a sumo wrestler.
You either have to like looking rounded (and there's nought necessarily wrong with that) or, if you want to look skinny (which is not necessarily a good thing in itself), you have to eat way less.
Exercise is good, but much harder if you have to do it with extra kgs. But having too little kgs is bad. Just look at that Pirates of the Caribbean woman. Blerrr. Poor dear.
[ 06. July 2006, 11:10: Message edited by: Left at the Altar ]
Posted by Genie (# 3282) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
At the end of the day, what contributes most to a person's weight, is how much that person eats.
<snip>
The best (and really only) way to lose weight is to eat less. Seems to me that the easiest thing to do is to look at what's on your plate every time you eat (assuming that you eat too much) and throw half of it into the bin before starting. If you do this, the potatoes will come off easily and walking/running/riding etc will be a much more pleasant experience.
In which case maybe you'd like to explain why, despite eating less than 1000 calories, drinking 3 litres of water, fidgeting at every opportunity, taking four flights of stairs twice, and walking 4 miles per day, I'm *gaining* weight?
Posted by CrookedCucumber (# 10792) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
The best (and really only) way to lose weight is to eat less. Seems to me that the easiest thing to do is to look at what's on your plate every time you eat (assuming that you eat too much) and throw half of it into the bin before starting. If you do this, the potatoes will come off easily and walking/running/riding etc will be a much more pleasant experience.
This kind of statement is frequently made by people who find that a moderate diet and a modicum of exercise an effective way to control their weight. Sure, if what you need to do to manage your weight is to eat fewer donuts, that should not be a major sacrifice.
The people I sympathise with are those who have already cut out all non-essential food, don't drink, exercise more than they have time for, and are still overweight. Telling such people to eat fewer donuts is a bit of a poke in the eye, I should imagine.
It is, of course, absolutely true that, unless you have a metabolic disorder, there will be a level of energy intake below which you will lose weight. You don't see many corpulent people in famine zones. But if you can control your weight by eating fewer donuts, and another person has to agonize about whether he can risk risk eating anything but lettuce today, you should count yourself fortunate.
Posted by Emma. (# 3571) on
:
I really dont eat much - but i do absolutely no exercise at the moment. I know that thats what i need to do to shift the extra weight ive added over the last couple of years
Its a lot easier if theres someone to exercise with....
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
Plus, it's not necessarily the case that the fatter person is eating more, in bulk. You can eat a lot more brown rice than you can doughnuts to get the same effect. You could snack throughout the day on fruit and, I don't know, boiled fish without gaining as much weight as the person who ate 2 meals at Macdonalds and was hungry in between.
The quality and type of food are important. As several people have said, we're programmed to seek out fat and sugar for good reasons, the fact that they're easily available now means that most Western people need absolutely undreamt of levels of willpower not to get fat. Some people don't have it.
My grandad never had to worry about spending his leisure time 'doing exercise', he'd have laughed at the idea. And he never had to fight to control his liking for high fat high sugar foods. He did hard physical work in a shipyard all day and they ate what they could afford. Red meat and sweets were a luxury they lapped up if they could get them, because mostly they couldn't. We just don't live in that world now.
Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Genie:
quote:
Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
At the end of the day, what contributes most to a person's weight, is how much that person eats.
<snip>
The best (and really only) way to lose weight is to eat less. Seems to me that the easiest thing to do is to look at what's on your plate every time you eat (assuming that you eat too much) and throw half of it into the bin before starting. If you do this, the potatoes will come off easily and walking/running/riding etc will be a much more pleasant experience.
In which case maybe you'd like to explain why, despite eating less than 1000 calories, drinking 3 litres of water, fidgeting at every opportunity, taking four flights of stairs twice, and walking 4 miles per day, I'm *gaining* weight?
If that is genuinely the case, you should probably see a doctor. Hypothyroidism will do that. Probably other things will too.
And in response to CC:
Look, what I say may well be a gross generalisation. But having watched my "I eat very little" mother graze all day for years, what goes in the mouth can sometimes be forgotten. For what it's worth, I think that donuts are an abomination unto the lord and I'd happily ban them from this earth. At the end of the day, people western society tend to eat too much and do too little.
Me included.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
[Slightly tangential]Heh heh. Went on a backpacking weekend the other week with my brother in law. Both of us have recently had to admit defeat and start buying 36" waist trousers, despite both being able to recall when 32" would fit fine
Haven't done it for *cough*mumble*cough* years, but nevertheless got out the maps and planned a route with the sort of mileage we used to do.
Oh dear oh dear oh dear...[/Slightly tangential]
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Look, what I say may well be a gross generalisation. But having watched my "I eat very little" mother graze all day for years, what goes in the mouth can sometimes be forgotten.
Well, I know it isn't with me. I'm at work all day and have nowhere to graze. It's lunch and that's it. Only if I'm feeling faint with hunger, which does occasionally happen. I sometimes get a snack. That's the exception. At home it's my tea and that's it. Nothing else.
And yet I'm gaining.
Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on
:
Walk to work. And back.
Walk up the stairs.
Walk to the supermarket and back.
Up until very recently, just feeding oneself required a lot of exercise. Drinking required going out to a river or a well (I'm not talking the last 50 years here, obviously).
Getting anywhere, likewise. Ride a horse instead of driving your car. The difference is a lot.
Humans used to do loads of exercise just doing day-to-day stuff and eat very little, by comparison to today. For starters, the food back past 100 years ago was not flash.
We can't have the yummy easy life and be svelte. It don't compute.
[ 06. July 2006, 11:32: Message edited by: Left at the Altar ]
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
Walk to work. And back.
Seventeen miles each way?
quote:
[qb]Walk up the stairs.
Already do.
quote:
Walk to the supermarket and back.
It's two miles away and 350 foot lower in altitude. Are you really suggesting carrying five bags of shopping and a toddler up a 350' hill for two miles?
quote:
Up until very recently, just feeding oneself required a lot of exercise. Drinking required going out to a river or a well (I'm not talking the last 50 years here, obviously).
Getting anywhere, likewise. Ride a horse instead of driving your car. The difference is a lot.
Well, this is all very true. But unfortunately time machines are even further away than the magic fat loss pill.
quote:
Humans used to do loads of exercise just doing day-to-day stuff and eat very little, by comparison to today. For starters, the food back past 100 years ago was not flash.
We can't have the yummy easy life and be svelte. It don't compute.
Indeed. But nor do the simplistic solutions you've posted, I'm afraid.
Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on
:
OK then, admit defeat.
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
:
I have a pedometer, which is very interesting, because it tells me how much I walk in a day.
When I go to work in London, the figure is normally around 8000 steps, although last week, with a long lunch, it was 11000. That is probably enough to keep my weight from going up.
Unfortunately, when I drive to work ( 33 miles - sorry, not walking ), the figure is more like 2500. So my aim is to increase the 2500 so that I am walking more on most of the days.
On Sundays, it can be down to under 1000, which is a disgrace. But I need to keep it up to the 3000-5000 level. It is not a lot of extra to do, and the pedometer keeps me motivated. I do walk where I can - into town, to church, when I don't have a guitar. I tend to use stairs rather than lifts where I can, although my current office is on the ground floor.
Posted by CrookedCucumber (# 10792) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
Look, what I say may well be a gross generalisation. But having watched my "I eat very little" mother graze all day for years, what goes in the mouth can sometimes be forgotten. For what it's worth, I think that donuts are an abomination unto the lord and I'd happily ban them from this earth. At the end of the day, people western society tend to eat too much and do too little.
There's no doubt that many people eat too much. I certainly know people who carelessly eat high-energy foods which they'd be better off without, and then complain that they can't lose weight.
What's more, I'd agree with you that an awful lot of overweight people could lose weight without radical discomfort. I have a suspicion that some of the daft diet regimes that have been promoted, which have no phyiological basis at all, do actually work because people who follow them just eat less. Many people, for some reason, can't `just eat less,' but can follow a plan that says ``Today eat this. Tomorrow eat that''.
But the problem, as I see it, is that the amount of discomfort and inconvenience required to maintain weight control varies immensely from person to person. Some people have the metabolic characteristics, the opportunities, and/or the lifestyle to make it relatively straightforward. Others have none of these, and find it difficult.
My experience is that people who find it relatively straightforward to maintain weight control overestimate the amount of effort they have put into it.
If all you (in general, not you personally) need to do to control your weight is stop eating between meals, walk to work, and jog three times a week, you aren't really putting yourself to that much trouble. Anybody should be able to manage that. But there are people who have to live on lettuce and exercise like galley slaves to keep their weight under control, and such people don't deserve the condescension of people who don't really have a problem in that area.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
OK then, admit defeat.
Oh but I haven't. I'm just pointing out that your "oh so easy" solutions aren't easy, simple or practicable for many people. Your "eat less and take more exercise" regime is naive and insulting to those who are already trying it and finding it doesn't work.
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by CrookedCucumber:
If all you (in general, not you personally) need to do to control your weight is stop eating between meals, walk to work, and jog three times a week, you aren't really putting yourself to that much trouble. Anybody should be able to manage that. But there are people who have to live on lettuce and exercise like galley slaves to keep their weight under control, and such people don't deserve the condescension of people who don't really have a problem in that area.
Thank you CrookedCucumber, that's all I've been trying to say for years, only I do it with added hysteria.
Mr Rat used to be able to do that - minor adjustments in diet and exercise, just cutting out the mid-morning scone and adding an extra gym visit per week and the weight would fall off. Cue smug remarks about 'calories in, calories out' when I complained about my weight. Since he's turned 42, though, that has just stopped working. He now has to eat dramatically less and exercise to a ridiculous extent to shift any weight at all. And boy, you should hear him complain about it!
There's little more irritating than the same person who's lectured you on how easy it is to change your lifestyle and lose weight saying 'Oh come on, it's Saturday night, one little pizza can't hurt you'. No, one little treat can't hurt you. For me it will mean either starving tomorrow to make up, or humiliation on WeightWatchers night.
Of course I know that if I ate less and exercised more, and kept doing it, I'd eventually lose some weight. But I know from experience that the extent I have to go to to make any appreciable difference is so extreme that I simply don't care enough to keep it up. So it's only an aethestic, rather than health, issue after all. In the end, I'd rather have that little Saturday treat, and some enjoyable free time, than be skinny and gorgeous.
(Mind you, I can recommend breastfeeding for weight loss. If I'd known, I'd have bred years ago. I'm going to write a diet book and make a million.)
Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on
:
I'm beginning to think it's one of those things we just can't talk about. I can say, truthfully, that I do an intense aerobic exercise tape that includes weight training and the equivalent of three miles of walking, six days a week, and someone will tell me that all I need to do is take the stairs instead of the elevator. I can say that I haven't had anything that contains sugar (or honey or corn syrup) in years and someone will tell me to cut out donuts. If I say I don't snack and only eat two meals a day then my portions must be too big. If I eat low-fat then the Atkins folk will tell me that's my problem, right there, and someone else will inform me that all fats aren't the same, you know. Yeah, I know.
I once had someone tell me that if I wasn't losing weight on a certain plan then I must be cheating. When it comes to passing judgement on other people the holier-than-thou skinnys don't hesitate to call the rest of us liars. It's all very simple in their minds.
People who wouldn't dream of passing judgement on someone else for their sex lives, or how often they go to church, or whether they seem to be tithing or not; look at someone's size and decide to make judgements about them. We have fat thighs? We're sinners.
Posted by Nonpropheteer (# 5053) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by CrookedCucumber:
1. People are different. I can remain reasonably fit and not too fat by careful eating and regular exercise. But some people can't. It's wrong to harangue these folks.
When people who can but won't control their diet start clogging the courts with lawsuits because some corporation made them fat, or cost tax payers millions in medical expenses, then they do deserve to be harangued. It is a matter of choice and many people make tough choices every day to keep themselves fit. Ruth has just admitted to making a conscious choice to avoid high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils (
good choice, btw). If enough people would make these choices, the food industry would change - it would have to just to survive. So it is actually the people who won't make the choice to eat healthy that make it more expensive for those of us who want to eat healthy. Maybe we should sue them?
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
LATA - there's nothing "easy" about being hungry to the point of feeling nauseous.
If you get that nauseous feeling between meals, then you may have something medically wrong with you. Get checked for diabetes (just to be sure). If you get nauseous only after long periods without food (8+ hours) that is just your body burning fat and it'll pass after a few hours.
The things LATA has been suggesting are not "oh so easy" fixes. They are tough fixes, but possible. If you are doing exercise and eating very little but still gaining you are either eating the wrong foods, lying to yourself about how much you eat and exercise, or need to have a doctor check you for diabetes and other similar conditions.
quote:
Originally posted by Genie:
In which case maybe you'd like to explain why, despite eating less than 1000 calories, drinking 3 litres of water, fidgeting at every opportunity, taking four flights of stairs twice, and walking 4 miles per day, I'm *gaining* weight?
If you are gaining weight on 1000 calories a day and getting all of that exercise then there are a few possibilities.
Your diet is too low in fat and causing your body to compensate by creating fat from food that would normally be used for energy.
Your weight gain is from muscle: Muscle weighs 3 to 4 times that of fat.
You are retaining massive amounts of water.
Your 1000 calories comes from lettuce leaves naturally high in gamma radiation, your name is David Bruce Banner, and we wouldn't like you when you are angry.
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Rat:
In the end, I'd rather have that little Saturday treat, and some enjoyable free time, than be skinny and gorgeous.
(Mind you, I can recommend breastfeeding for weight loss. If I'd known, I'd have bred years ago. I'm going to write a diet book and make a million.)
We've seen your picture - you're a babe!
But I might have problems with the breastfeeding diet. Being mammarily challanged, so to speak.
There does come a point where you realise that losing weight is incompatible with enjoying life. I don't mean just eating lots of cakes, but, as you have said, taking a whole lot more of your time and energy in getting the pounds off. As the saying goes, you won't live longer, but it will feel like it.
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
Wait, you saying it's our fault that aisle after aisle of the superstore has nothing but junkfood on display?
The superstore itself is not to blame in any way whatsoever?
There is, i suppose, some merit in that argument but the way you are arguing sounds a bit far-fetched to me.
Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on
:
Nice, NP. If we can't lose weight and/or keep it off as easily as you, we must have a medical problem. You being the Gold Standard, of course, for human beings in general.
Posted by magdalenegospel (# 11619) on
:
Twilight - I heartily sympathise.
I've battled with my weight for years, until I got told that I had hormone problems.
I discovered that the 'clearing half your plate' method wasn't the way forward, but I could eat lots and lots of certain foods till I became full, and didn't put on weight. Rice, of any sort, when plain boiled with some bouillon and vegetables, is now a staple. As are Quinoa and Millet.
The other thing I discovered was cutting out wheat helped. Not because I was allergic to wheat, but because the stuff that's used to make wheat palatable (Sugar, yeast, fat) was causing the problem.
Certain endocrine disorders relate to emotional problems - Stress for example will make us more apple-shaped, because of the raised cortisol levels, which also mean that we will store far more food as fat more rapidly.
So society's vicious circle of longer hours and food on the run will produce a stress reaction that means we pile on the pounds. It's one of the reasons that routines help. If the body knows it's going to get fed to a schedule (either by grazing, 6 meals a day whatever) then it will gear up for that. Evolution, see
I'm not a nutritionist, I'm not even slim, but I have managed to lose weight, and know why it's gone back on for me and how to keep losing it.
So there's all sorts of reasons people are overweight, and I got so fed up with people saying 'no one fat came out of Belsen' (to which the retort was 'but some fat people died sooner than others' when I realised) as a child/adolescent.
There are two interesting strands to this thread "This doesn't work for me" and "These are the social issues involved".
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
Amazing isn't it?
NP - I know I haven't got a medical condition. I just feel sick when I'm hungry. Always have done. I feel hungry because I'm trying to limit how much I eat.
Posted by Genie (# 3282) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Nonpropheteer:
quote:
Originally posted by Genie:
In which case maybe you'd like to explain why, despite eating less than 1000 calories, drinking 3 litres of water, fidgeting at every opportunity, taking four flights of stairs twice, and walking 4 miles per day, I'm *gaining* weight?
If you are gaining weight on 1000 calories a day and getting all of that exercise then there are a few possibilities.
Your diet is too low in fat and causing your body to compensate by creating fat from food that would normally be used for energy.
Your weight gain is from muscle: Muscle weighs 3 to 4 times that of fat.
You are retaining massive amounts of water.
Your 1000 calories comes from lettuce leaves naturally high in gamma radiation, your name is David Bruce Banner, and we wouldn't like you when you are angry.
My diet has contatined an average of 27g of fat per day over the last two weeks. That comprises 25% of my calorie intake (average 994 per day over the past two weeks). Retaining water doesn't happen when you're drinking water and keeping the sodium down. I have virtually no muscle at all. My calories come from fruit, vegetables, bulgur wheat, cereal, skimmed milk, no more than two slices of low GI bread and no more than 4oz of lean meat/protein per day. As far as medical problems go, I had a blood test this morning to rule out anaemia and hypothyroidism. My doctor is expecting both to come back negative. Not that it's any of your business, of course.
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Genie:
My diet has contatined an average of 27g of fat per day over the last two weeks. That comprises 25% of my calorie intake (average 994 per day over the past two weeks). Retaining water doesn't happen when you're drinking water and keeping the sodium down. I have virtually no muscle at all. My calories come from fruit, vegetables, bulgur wheat, cereal, skimmed milk, no more than two slices of low GI bread and no more than 4oz of lean meat/protein per day. As far as medical problems go, I had a blood test this morning to rule out anaemia and hypothyroidism. My doctor is expecting both to come back negative. Not that it's any of your business, of course.
It's not any of my business either, of course. But is your doctor happy with a regime of 994 calories a day? That sounds very low to me, even if you're trying to lose weight.
Posted by CrookedCucumber (# 10792) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
When it comes to passing judgement on other people the holier-than-thou skinnys don't hesitate to call the rest of us liars. It's all very simple in their minds.
To be fair, I think we are all guilty of this to some extent. If something comes relatively easier to us -- whatever it is -- it is very easy to underestimate the amount of effort required of people to whom it doesn't come easily.
For example, I can remember in the past feely smugly self-congratulatory about doing well in an examination, and telling fellow students who didn't do so well that they just needed to study harder. ``Well, of course it isn't easy...'' What I didn't realize was that some of these people were studying hard enough to make me look like a total slacker, and still did badly. And, basically, I was an insensitive, smug, bastard.
I'm sure I'm the same about many other things as well, but just don't realize it.
Posted by Nonpropheteer (# 5053) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
Wait, you saying it's our fault that aisle after aisle of the superstore has nothing but junkfood on display?
The superstore itself is not to blame in any way whatsoever?
Would the superstore carry all that junk food if people didn't buy it? The people who invest their money to open the superstore are not doing it so they can be your daddy. They are doing it so they can make money. They make money by selling products that are in demand, not by forcing people to buy broccoli instead of gummy bears.
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
Nice, NP. If we can't lose weight and/or keep it off as easily as you, we must have a medical problem. You being the Gold Standard, of course, for human beings in general.
I'm the Gold Standard?? Nice! 40 lbs overweight and still an Adonis! Woo Hoo.
I lose weight in the summer - when I get more exercise and eat less carbs/more meat - and I gain it in the winter - when I eat more carbs/less meat and get less exercise. The body works in a particular way. If you are starving yourself and gaining weight, then there is something wrong with body or the food that you do put into it.
Genie:
Your calorie count is low enough to cause a 4' tall ballerina to lose a pound a week. A three year old is considered to need a minimum of 1300 calories per day. There is something amiss. You are expending around 400 calories a day just walking. Going up the stairs burns you 60-190 calories, depending on your pace, going down them only about 15. Assuming average calorie burn with two round trips on the stairs, you are only netting around 460 calories. That is not even enough to maintain your nutritional requirements (1325 cal, assuming 5'4", 130 lbs with a sedentary lifestyle could expect to lose 1 pound per week). You shouldn't be gaining weight at all. It should be falling off of you. You should be making Nicole Ritchie (on left, swimming in purple) look fat. With that amount of activity you shouldn't have any trouble maintaining or losing weight - you sure as heck shouldn't be gaining. So you are either an anomaly or something is wrong - either with your diet, your body, or your accounting.
Posted by Telepath (# 3534) on
:
Maybe it would help to approach the problem the other way around. If there were something we could say that wouldn't be the words of insensitive, smug bastards, what would it be? What answer would satisfy?
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
So you are either an anomaly or something is wrong - either with your diet, your body, or your accounting.
Or possibly with your assumption that you know enough about nutrition and metabolism to come to this conclusion. You're not a professional nutritionist, so it's best not to imagine that you know enough to pronounce with such surety. There may well be things that you don't know.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Nonpropheteer:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
Wait, you saying it's our fault that aisle after aisle of the superstore has nothing but junkfood on display?
The superstore itself is not to blame in any way whatsoever?
Would the superstore carry all that junk food if people didn't buy it? The people who invest their money to open the superstore are not doing it so they can be your daddy. They are doing it so they can make money. They make money by selling products that are in demand, not by forcing people to buy broccoli instead of gummy bears.
That's rather naive, NP. Might I suggest that there's actually more profit in the junk? Superstores want us to buy junk. They can very efficiently make us do that by only stocking junk. By promoting junk heavily. Then, when people do complain that there's only junk, they can turn and say "there's no demand". Of course not, because they've used their considerable influence to stem demand.
Go into a pub in England, and it's very likely that on the bar you will see a handpull containing a high quality, craft brewed ale. Next to it will be a gas tap containing a mass produced, tasteless product with little to commend it. It's also most likely more expensive. And yet on average more people buy the crappy gaspump wee-wee. Why? Because it has a higher profit margin and so is promoted more heavily by the breweries. People recognise the brand.
And it's the same in the supermarkets. People recognise the brands of junk. They are not so familiar with the healthier options. You can write them off as too stupid and easily influenced for it to matter, but that's how it is.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
It's often seemed to me that part of the problem is that our society thinks that normal people are fat. I've read that medically people who are 20-30 pounds "over-weight" are healthier than those who aren't.
In my experience, the best way to lose weight is to have time to cook all your own food. When I know what I'm eating it's easier to control it and to eat what I crave. I find that if I'm eating pizza when I'm craving protein that I am a lot hungrier than if I'm eating chick for the protein. I don't think that would help everyone but it does work for me.
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
:
I'm sure we all know people who can eat like a hobbit, but not put on any weight. Whatever the reason for it, they do exist. So why is it so hard to accept that some people may eat like Gollum, and still not lose weight or put it on?
Ignoring the psycholgical factors, there does not seem to be a total and clear correlation between the actual amount you eat and your weight. At the very least, some other factors ( like what you eat ) are involved, and how active you are without any particular exercise.
We have a friend who smokes. She has tried to give it up at various times, but the stresses of life have thwarted her efforts. Now, while it might be better for her and some of her other problems etc if she didn't smoke ( not that she smokes much ), but giving it up is not the most important this for her at this point in her life. Maybe she is wrong, maybe it should be the most important thing. Then, maybe she would have to find some other way of getting through life for people to berate her about.
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I'm sure we all know people who can eat like a hobbit, but not put on any weight. Whatever the reason for it, they do exist.
Tapeworms?
quote:
So why is it so hard to accept that some people may eat like Gollum, and still not lose weight
Thermodynamics.
If you are putting on weight over the logn term (i.e. ignoring diurnal variation & hydration state) you are eating more food than you need. That is simply true. There is no getting round it.
Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on
:
Karl,
I am not sure I entirely followed your post with regards to the wee-wee beer. In America, the handcrafted beers are generally way more expensive than mass produced wee-wee. And yet both are very popular. People that can afford the good stuff buy the good stuff. People that can't (or have no taste) buy "Rocky Mountain Goat Piss" Coors. In America we have the full spread of quality versus cheap on almost everything. The grocery stores have everything from junk to jewels and it's mostly just a matter of preference. I can get Healthy Choice Dinners or Nacho Cheese Dorito Goodness at the same store. Our vegetable aisles have food from all over the world, often at reasonable prices if you shop carefully.
Americans have perfectly good labeling, good information on fat calories, and still quote:
....almost one-half of those surveyed said they buy foods that are bad for them, even after they read the nutrition label....
There does have to be some level of personal responsibility. If you have all the information you need and you still choose the Nacho Cheese Goodness over the Healthy Choice Rice Crackers the Supermarket is not responsible.
I choose to eat beef more than I probably should. If I die younger for it, I plan to die with a smile on my face for all the yummy years I had. If someone else wants to die at 95 of Alzheimers while having eaten shrubs their whole life, knock yourself out. Live and let live. People have to choose their own way, and the Supermarket needs to be able to choose theirs without having to worry about people suing them for their own bad choices.
Posted by Nonpropheteer (# 5053) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
You're not a professional nutritionist, so it's best not to imagine that you know enough to pronounce with such surety. There may well be things that you don't know. [/QB]
I don't have to be a professional to know that someone gaining weight on a 1000 calorie diet is an anomaly in and of itself, but once you add a 600 calorie/day exercise regime - she should be dead in a week, dude. If she is gaining weight on 1000 calories/day then we need to isolate why and inject it into all the starving third-worlders that are wasting away from 1000-1500 calorie /day diets.
If you can find me something to dispute that, please let me know. I've just spent 3 hours trying to find an incident of someone gaining weight on a 1,000 calorie diet and have yet to find anything - other than Genie, that is. Do you have any concept as to how little food is involved in 1000 calories? 2TBS of peanut butter is almost 200 calories, 4 oz of meat is around 270-300. I'm sorry, but there is something she is not telling us because either her diet is wrong, her body is malfunctioning, or professional nutritionists and the WHO are absolutely full of shistky and should be the first against the wall when the revolution begins.
Posted by I_am_not_Job (# 3634) on
:
Karl - I think NP is right her about a 1000 cal diet. Genie, I hope that the doctor is able to find some answers for you.
Also Karl, feeling sick when you're hungry - sounds like low blood sugar levels (actually the opposite of diabetes). I get this, but had it particularly bad at university where I didn't eat enough regular meals. Got a blood test, thinking I'd inherited my grandfather's diabetes and it turned out to be this. Do you get headaches and moody too when this happens? I tend to feel shakey (literally I can hold my hand out and it shakes) and my brain starts feeling weird and I feel faintly nauseous. A good trick is have some dried fruit snacks to hand - levels out the blood sugars without being hugely calorific.
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
The grocery stores have everything from junk to jewels and it's mostly just a matter of preference.
More junk than jewels. Seriously, check out the bread aisle next time you shop -- it's insane what they put into bread. Then look at all the pasta sauces; I've found exactly one brand in my local grocery store that isn't full of crap. Yeah, yeah, I should make my own pasta sauce, and I frequently do. But lots of people really don't have time.
It really matters where you live, too. If you live in the inner city, you may live miles away from a good grocery store with a reasonable selection of healthy food, especially produce.
Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on
:
RuthW
I happen to have many "inner city" friends that shop at what were once loosely referred to as "Ranch Markets" (i.e. Jons) where one can get fairly good produce dirt cheap. I know because I will often drive into the "inner city" to get cheap produce from Jons.
I don't eat a lot of bread so I can't speak to it too much, but the Teutonic Goddess does, and I usually can find a healthy option at my local Ralph's just fine. I will admit that I was not checking the fat label but I was able to get "Granola Rice 300 Grain-Horsefeed Whole Wheat Brick bread" every time I have looked for her. I also was able to buy nice "FreshMade French Properly Bleached White Sourdough" for myself and the costs were not that outrageous.
And Judas, one can't find the time to make ones own pasta sauce!!!!? That's absurd! I can make Pasta Sauce in the same amount of time I can open a jar of Prego for Zeus sake! Open can of tomato paste, add italian spices, olive oil. Done. I don't even measure.
I think you demonstrate part of the problem. People think "Oh I don't have time" when they really mean, "I want this time to watch TV" or whatever. I am by all accounts busier than shit (3 hour commute anyone?) and I find time to cook when I choose to. This really isn't about whether the Supermarket/Marketing/MiltaryIndustrialComplex is screwing us. It's about us making choices, fat and happy, or otherwise.
If one wants to die fat and happy, die fat and happy. If one wants to do otherwise, get off one's ass and go for a walk and cook one's own damn pasta sauce!
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
I think Gwai is correct. I believe that being extremely skinny is unhealthy and abnormal.
This is true for men, but more so for women, who need a higher percentage of body fat then do men.
Besides, womenly curves are not exactly ugly.
[ 06. July 2006, 18:34: Message edited by: Papio ]
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
In America, the handcrafted beers are generally way more expensive than mass produced wee-wee. And yet both are very popular. People that can afford the good stuff buy the good stuff. People that can't (or have no taste) buy "Rocky Mountain Goat Piss" Coors. In America we have the full spread of quality versus cheap on almost everything. The grocery stores have everything from junk to jewels and it's mostly just a matter of preference. I can get Healthy Choice Dinners or Nacho Cheese Dorito Goodness at the same store. Our vegetable aisles have food from all over the world, often at reasonable prices if you shop carefully.
A sincere congratulations to America, then.
But that isn't the way things are in the UK. here, the unhealthy food is cheaper and more easily available then the healthy stuff. The crappy lager is often as or more expensive that the good beer, and people will have "a drink". Barry drinks Fosters. Martin drinks Guiness. Julian drinks Carling. In every pub. Every time. The independant brewers have to rely on people like Karl and I who like to try different beers, but we are most assuredly in a minority.
This is probably ones of those times that our respective countries are just different.
Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on
:
On that (womenly curves), Papio, we certainly agree.
I think that there is a point at which one may want to watch it though for health reasons, clearly. When I was 135 pounds I could eat like hell and not gain weight and my blood cholestorol was beyond good. Now, 10 years later,weight is 200 and cholestorol is not bad but not good either. Even if I am okay with being fatter (and I am to a point) I don't like the health issues creeping up. So I joined the gym.
Again, choices. What someone and somesociety thinks of fat can be damned. It's up to the individuals to choose the right thing for them.
[ 06. July 2006, 18:48: Message edited by: Mad Geo ]
Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
Just because I can borrow £125,000, simply because I can't resist borrowing £125,000 ... does that make it the Bank's fault if I keep raiding the candy store?
Likewise it troubles me that some obese people have started looking beyond their minds and mouths to the name on the packet for someone to blame and sue for their own lack of self control. Are we creating a society of helpless victims who will do anything EXCEPT look at their own behaviours?
I agree with those who apportion the blame. People should be held responsible for their decisions. On the other hand, if you don't find that temptation has become more tempting within the past generation, the entire advertising industry will feel insulted. As our privacy erodes, their powers increase: promoters of every kind can tailor and personalize their messages to various categories of small "target" populations.
According to a recent issue of Time, these changes are even affecting the strategy of political campaigns. They use less and less the shotgun approach of running ads during the highest-rated TV programs, and more and more the rifle approach of gathering as much information about each voter as possible, sending him or her customized messages, and asking them to share (with) their friends and acquaintances. The word the strategists use unabashedly for this new strategy is "viral."
Gullibility is the downside of the virtue of trusting others and assuming well of them. Compared to their elders, the young in western societies are making suspicion and cynicism an art form. Steeped as we are in an environment of increasingly sophisticated propaganda, this is a necessity for survival, but I won't attempt to argue that it's a Christian virtue or that the isolating result augurs well for other Christian virtues.
Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
I'm sure we all know people who can eat like a hobbit, but not put on any weight. Whatever the reason for it, they do exist.
I used to be one of them. When I was younger, the doctor did thyroid tests and suchlike every couple of years, just to be sure there wasn't something wrong with me. There wasn't. I wasn't more active than my peers (probably less, since my favorite leisure time activity was reading, and I was extremely clumsy and hated sports of all kinds). I didn't eat less than other kids my age -- I ate a LOT more. I just somehow burned it all off without doing much of anything in particular to do so. I never, ever allowed myself to get hungry -- for one thing, I never felt hungry; like Karl I would feel nauseated instead, and that was unpleasant. But if I didn't eat a lot, I'd lose weight. And since I was already way too skinny, that didn't seem like a good idea.
That's no longer true for me. But it took me a while to realize that had changed, and then a bit longer to change my habits, and I've gained more than a few pounds in the mean time. But I think my new reality is probably typical of most people -- I lose weight if I exercise more and limit what and how much I eat, and I gain weight if I don't. It's not terribly difficult, but it certainly isn't easy, and it does require discipline.
But I am certain that some people whose experience must be the opposite of what mine was when I was younger. I would be foolish to think they didn't exist. And as my situation could not be explained by any medical condition that any of my doctors could find, nor by my not being aware of or truthful about what I was doing, I do not assume that they necessarily have a medical condition or less than honest about or aware of their situation. It could just be the way they are.
I don't know that anyone has a good explanation for it, nor do I know of anyone who is studying people whose pattern of weight gain or loss is truly exceptional. But I'm sure a lot could be learned from their experience, if we listened to them rather than made assumptions about them.
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Telepath:
Maybe it would help to approach the problem the other way around. If there were something we could say that wouldn't be the words of insensitive, smug bastards, what would it be? What answer would satisfy?
I think that would rather depend what the question was! Generally I find that it's unsolicited advice and comments that irritate.
More generally I think that part of the issue is how much we are inclined to despise any particular group. That informs what assumptions we make about them and their behaviour.
Replace diet and exercise with something else. There is ample medical and other evidence that breastfeeding is the best thing for everybody concerned. In fact, if what we're told about the health benefits for baby and mother is true, Nonpropheteer could probably make an argument for suing non-breastfeeding mothers to recover future health care costs!
So, I'm currently breastfeeding a 10 week old. There've been a few shaky moments, but with persistence I got through them, and basically I've found it pretty easy Of my post-natal group, only 3 of us are still breastfeeding, the rest only lasted a few weeks before switching to formula, if they tried at all.
How should I react when other mothers in the group tell me that they gave up breastfeeding? Should I feel superior and lecture them that breasteeding is easy? Should I assume them to be lazy or weakminded or self-indulgent? After all, they didn't care enough about the wellbeing of their baby to persist through a few minor difficulties, did they? If they tell me that the pain of early breastfeeding was unbearable, should I assume that they are lying or self-deluded, and tell them so? I didn't have unbearable pain, did I? Any of those assumptions could be true, for all I know - lazy, weak and uncaring people do exist, we all know that.
Or, knowing next to nothing about these people's lives, should I give them he benefit of the doubt? Assume that they stopped because they faced bigger challenges than I did? That they found it more difficult. That they are honest and actually suffered more pain than me? Remind myself that rates of breastfeeding in the UK is really low, that all kinds societal influences militate against it, and assume that there are things about the person's life that makes them more susceptible to those influences than me? Basically, should I assume that I may have been lucky, rather than better, and should be thankful rather than smug?
I think in that scenario most people (except a few breastfeeding fascists) would prefer to take the second option, lacking evidence to the contrary. But fat and unfitness are such despised things in our culture, everybody feels entitled to assume the worst about anybody less svelte than them.
Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
OK then, admit defeat.
Oh but I haven't. I'm just pointing out that your "oh so easy" solutions aren't easy, simple or practicable for many people. Your "eat less and take more exercise" regime is naive and insulting to those who are already trying it and finding it doesn't work.
Karl, without trying to sound too motherish (but bound to fail), your post was full of excuses for why you can't do more walking.
If you need more exercise (which you seemed to be saying when you posted about your proposed walk), then you have to take the steps to do it.
If you live 17 kms from work, then drive 16, park the car somewhere and walk the rest of the way.
If your wife (who looks very nice and not at all bossy) makes you take the toddler to the supermarket every time you go, then either just go for a bottle of milk and have a nice 2km walk along the way so that you can take back the shopping and the toddler, or take the toddler (stroller recommended), leave the stroller at the service desk while you get the weekly shop, order home delivery (or as Mrs B to come down and pick up the stuff) and walk back.
You can either think of it as very very inconvenient when you have a car, or you can think of it as something you have to do/want to do.
Peronally, I think of excercise as a pain in the butt. I force my husband to force me to do it. I wish he forced me more, because I can find excuses pretty easily.
Posted by Telepath (# 3534) on
:
Originally posted by Rat:
quote:
I think that would rather depend what the question was! Generally I find that it's unsolicited advice and comments that irritate.
That's why unsolicited advice is usually considered rude.
quote:
But fat and unfitness are such despised things in our culture, everybody feels entitled to assume the worst about anybody less svelte than them.
Hmmm. I used to be very skinny, in my youth. On a daily basis I would have people telling me that I MUST be anorexic, I MUST be. It wasn't only stupid children who didn't know any better, it was sophisticated adults who definitely should have known better. Accompanying this, usually, were comments about my being "pale and sickly".
I had to see a counsellor over an unrelated matter, and I couldn't get her off the subject of whether I was eating enough, and whether I was injuring myself.
I also got a bunch of comments about how I must be on heroin, etc, etc. Or the old, entirely unprovoked: "hey, I eat the same amount you do, I just don't throw up afterwards." And blah blah, I wasn't as curvaceous as a real woman should be, etc. Or was causing other women to be anorexic (as if I had crowds of admirers looking to me for direction) or setting a bad example.
Meanwhile, one of my friends was lying in hospital being fed through a tube in her nose. She really was anorexic. She was certified insane at one point.
In light of this, I found the remarks about my weight rather tasteless. I don't think that all of those remarks were made out of concern, and even those that were tended to miss the mark, as it is not particularly graceful to insist at the top of your voice that someone has a major mental disorder because they weigh less than you. It does, however, seem to be de facto socially acceptable. Yes, I got the point that they were real women with curves and I wasn't. I got the point that I looked ugly and sick. Yawn.
What I didn't get was fooled by it. I also didn't get manipulated into apologizing or hating myself for being thinner than others would like. It's a shame that my very physical being was experienced by others as a reproach regardless of any attitudes I actually expressed, but I couldn't do anything about that.
I can't tell if you are specifically including me in the "everyone" that feels entitled to despise the less-svelte. I always assumed that since I naturally ran to skinniness, others must naturally run to fat, and under any conditions it wasn't up to me to make assumptions about what in others' lives had led them to the point they were at. I do have personal experience of gaining and then losing weight in a way that was demonstrably causally connected to what, how, and how much I was eating and how much exercise I was taking, and - controversially - I don't think that makes me a freak of nature.
Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on
:
Here's an interesting article about the myths of dieting. The Harvard study that demonstrated the increased mortality rate of the men who had lost weight over those who had gained was interesting. I also like his reminder that there has yet to be a single diet or exercise plan invented, that causes people to lose weight and keep it off over time. Instead it looks like the tiny proportion of people who manage to lose weight and keep it off are the ones who gradually consume fewer and fewer calories until they're not eating enough to get the vitamins and minerals they need. It's a case of dying thin and leaving a size 4 corpse.
Posted by John Holding (# 158) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Look, what I say may well be a gross generalisation. But having watched my "I eat very little" mother graze all day for years, what goes in the mouth can sometimes be forgotten.
Well, I know it isn't with me. I'm at work all day and have nowhere to graze. It's lunch and that's it. Only if I'm feeling faint with hunger, which does occasionally happen. I sometimes get a snack. That's the exception. At home it's my tea and that's it. Nothing else.
And yet I'm gaining.
Welcome to middle age (sorry Karl)!
There is, as I understand, an actual metabolic change in men (and perhaps women) somewhere between 40 and 50. It is literally true that you can exercise and eat exactly as before and once past that point, where you once maintained a steady weight, you now gain. Haven't quite figured out how to deal with it mind.
John
Posted by Laura (# 10) on
:
In answer to something posted ages ago: chicken nuggets are not remotely less expensive than real chicken, they're just easier than real chicken.
Right now, chicken breasts (the most expensive way to buy chicken) are around 6 bucks a pound, and 4 if you don't mind taking it off the bones yourself, and less if you use dark meat as well. With a pound and a half of chicken, I can bread and bake very yummy chicken "tenders" for my whole family. It's just that nobody knows how to cook any more, and they don't teach it. If you can cook, you can save immense quantities of money.
And Ruth: you can make pasta sauce that doesn't have high-fructose corn syrup and awful additives in large quantity and then store it in about 30 small containers (like zip-loc bags) for easy defrosting and use on that whole-wheat pasta we all adore so much.
I love, love, love cooking, though, so I realize not everyone shares that pleasure. And before anyone says they work too hard, I have 3 kids and also work. With planning, you can have much cheaper healthier food at home. Saving Dinner is a great place to start.
Posted by Genie (# 3282) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Nonpropheteer:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
You're not a professional nutritionist, so it's best not to imagine that you know enough to pronounce with such surety. There may well be things that you don't know.
I don't have to be a professional to know that someone gaining weight on a 1000 calorie diet is an anomaly in and of itself, but once you add a 600 calorie/day exercise regime - she should be dead in a week, dude. If she is gaining weight on 1000 calories/day then we need to isolate why and inject it into all the starving third-worlders that are wasting away from 1000-1500 calorie /day diets.
If you can find me something to dispute that, please let me know. I've just spent 3 hours trying to find an incident of someone gaining weight on a 1,000 calorie diet and have yet to find anything - other than Genie, that is. Do you have any concept as to how little food is involved in 1000 calories? 2TBS of peanut butter is almost 200 calories, 4 oz of meat is around 270-300. I'm sorry, but there is something she is not telling us because either her diet is wrong, her body is malfunctioning, or professional nutritionists and the WHO are absolutely full of shistky and should be the first against the wall when the revolution begins. [/QB]
Very well. What I ate on Tuesday was:
- 7am: one slice of toasted low GI bread with a teaspoon of reduced sugar jam: 130 calories
- 10am: 8 almonds: 55 calories
- 1pm: smoked salmon and mustard sandwich, and half a grapefruit: 201 calories
- 3pm: 5 prunes: 59 calories
- 7pm: chicken fajitas with salad (including 2.5oz of chicken): 290 calories
- 10pm: oatcake and hot chocolate: 80 calories
Total calories = 815
Change in weight the following morning = +0.1kg
Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on
:
Two things:
1. Karl, if I gave you the sh*ts with my last post, I apologise. Was too early in the morning.
2. Genie: One day and even one week is not enough to see the results of a low calorie diet. The one you are on is really, really low, if you are trying to maintain that over any length of time. But even at that low rate, one day will show no difference at all. You could gain or lose 2 pounds in a day and it means nothing.
Over a couple of weeks, you'd expect to see a drop, but it's a long process.
Why so low-calorie? (If it's not a rude question)
Posted by Genie (# 3282) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
2. Genie: One day and even one week is not enough to see the results of a low calorie diet. The one you are on is really, really low, if you are trying to maintain that over any length of time. But even at that low rate, one day will show no difference at all. You could gain or lose 2 pounds in a day and it means nothing.
Over a couple of weeks, you'd expect to see a drop, but it's a long process.
Why so low-calorie? (If it's not a rude question)
I've been eating this way for two months. And I'd have thought that the reason would be obvious to you. Calories in / calories out right? If I don't eat like this, the weight gain is even faster. I've gained 15kg since last september.
Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on
:
Sorry, wasn't meaning to be rude. It's just so low, I was surprised. I couldn't keep that up.
Posted by Ethne Alba (# 5804) on
:
Some poeple eat less and still put on weight.
I know I was one of them.
20 yrs down the track I'm still here.
But I did visit doctors along the way, convinced I was ill.
Some people just look at a piece of cake and the weight goes on.
I am now that person!
Without sounding like a really touchy feely person, don't I just need to listen to my body?
And don't I just hate doing that?
Posted by PhilA (# 8792) on
:
One reason I have a problem with weight is that I was brought up to clear my plate. So I ignore the little voice inside my head telling me I am full and carry on eating until my plate is empty.
I know this is a bad thing and I have to fight myself not to do it with the kids, but the number of times I hear myself saying "if you don't clear your plate, you won't get any pudding" or forcing them to eat more because I am convinced that they are not full, but want to go out and play rather than sit down and eat.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
Leaving food gives me anxiety as well. I'm old enough that my parents grew up during rationing, and their horror of wasting food was strongly passed on to me. Not that it's really an issue here, because I'm quite careful on portion control, and have actually been cutting the amounts of the high calorie elements over the years. Time was when I allowed 1/2lb mince per person in a bolognese or chili; now I divide 2 pound packs into three meals worth, each doing me, SWMBO and the sproglet, so that's slightly less than 1/3lb per adult.
LATA - I've been thinking about your suggestions, but they really come up against some serious practical difficulties. I am looking for ways, but at the moment SWMBO is pregnant which limits options even further as she tends to get tired easily. I can't leave so early for work, nor arrive so late, for example, that I can't help get the sprog ready for nursery or for bed. Time is very short.
I don't know about men's metabolism changing between 40 and 50; my problems started around 30.
Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on
:
Just ignore me, Karl. I was turning into your mother there. And you don't want that.
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Telepath:
That's why unsolicited advice is usually considered rude.
You seemed to feel an answer to a question was required - I wasn't aware of one being asked.
quote:
Hmmm. I used to be very skinny, in my youth. On a daily basis I would have people telling me that I MUST be anorexic, I MUST be. It wasn't only stupid children who didn't know any better, it was sophisticated adults who definitely should have known better.
I can see that would have been very irritating. But in a way I think it backs up what I was saying.
You were judged by some arbitrary standard to be 'too thin'. And the conclusion people jumped to was that you were ill, that you suffered from some psychological compulsion that you weren't fully responsible for. That you needed and deserved help, support, sympathy and treatment.
That would be incredibly infuriating if it wasn't the case, of course. But it's quite different than the assumptions that would have been made if you were extremely fat.
If you had been judged significantly overweight, people would have assumed that you were a lazy, stupid cow who sat on her fat arse all day stuffing her face with cream cakes and deserved nothing but contempt. They would have told you that all your problems would be easily solved if you just dropped the doughnuts and walked to work. Learned people would discuss on the radio whether 'people like you' should be denied or charged extra for medical treatment. Practically nobody would have considered that maybe your state might be due to a condition as deserving as anorexia, that eating might be filling a psychological need or be another form of self-harm.
I don't think either extreme is a particularly good thing, I think it would be a lot better if we were less proscriptive and tried to accept the diversity of the human condition. Weight should be a health issue where required, not a moral issue, not a matter of deserving and undeserving. But I really think its futile to deny that Western society takes a particularly twisted view of body shape and fitness, and is disproportionately disapproving of those won't or can't reduce themselves to the acceptable size.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Suggestions on a postcard, please.
Fidget more? I'm overweight & do a desk job but have recently tried to reeducate myself to fidget more at my desk, usually by tapping my foot on the floor. It helps to reduce tension and seems to have stopped my weight increasing; best of all, it annoys the hell out of the guy in the room beneath me!
I can relate to what you said about being bullied by the jocks at school; I hated PE and Games for the same reason - I was always the last to be picked for teams and had two perpetual left feet. Although I'm in a gym, I to my shame rarely go and if I do it's usually to use the pool (for which read sauna!) as I generally loathe exercise.
But, in addition to the fidgetting above, I've also acquired one of those pedometers and am consciously making the effort to up the amount of walking I do each day. Now, walking I do enjoy; it burns the calories and keeps you reasonably fit without seriously overtaxing the body and leaving you gasping. So, that's another suggestion I guess
Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on
:
I believe you, Genie!
My mother once joined Weight Watchers and followed their 1000 calorie plan (it was different in the 60's) to the letter. I would watch her weigh and measure every bite. "Ladies" didn't do much exercise back then but she was on the go with her rose garden, sewing projects and the PTA from dawn till dark. She actually gained weight. I did it with her one week and lost six pounds. That's a skinny teenager for you.
We don't hear about the people like Genie and my mother because it doesn't sell diet books and magazines. Instead they use the one or two people who have amazing results and then print "results not typical" in small letters at the bottom of the screen.
There have been cases of women in survival situations of no food at all over several months losing little or nothing. During the first season of the "Survivor" TV show Sue Hawk lost 4 pounds while the others lost 40 to 60 pounds on the same starvation diet of rats and snakes. Women in particular seem to be able to hang on to weight in starvation situations for much longer than men. Probably to keep babies alive during spells of famine. They can't go without food forever but they can for several months.
It is not just "calories in calories out" for everyone.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
...although it remains an abiding mystery as to why Hurley doesn't seem to have shed any lbs in Lost.
Re pedometers: mine's showing only 1500 steps (out of the recommended 10,000) and it's already lunchtime!
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
Well, it's always "calories in/calories out", in the sense that if you take in 500 calories, and expend 700, you have to lose 200 from somewhere - fat or glycogen. But what happens is that in "starvation" mode, the metabolism pares expenditure to a minimum, so that a person may find that although they only take in 1000 calories, amazingly their body adjusts so that they only spend 900. The other 100 become weight gain.
If we could find a way to feed any creature 500 calories and get 700 calories of work out of it without it getting thinner, we'd be able to solve our energy problems by feeding them fat and then rendering down their fat - we'd get more than we put in ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
[ 07. July 2006, 11:53: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
Posted by Sarkycow (# 1012) on
:
Genie, if you're eating below 1000 calories/day, then your body has probably gone into starvation mode , which seriously slows your weightloss, to negligable amounts (if that) for a while, until you've burnt off all your muscle. So it's a really bad thing for your body and your health, and you don't lose much weight for a long time on it.
You mentioned your doctor earlier - I'm not asking this to get a response from you, but does (s)he know how many calories/day you're consuming? If not, perhaps talking to him/her about dieting and good numbers of calories etc. might help.
Sarkycow
Posted by Fiddleback (# 2809) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Do you think anyone chooses to be fat?
That must be the stupidest question anyone has asked this year.
Eating is a voluntary action in human beings.
Posted by Telepath (# 3534) on
:
Rat - yes, you have summed up the point I was driving at.
The reason I said that unsolicited advice is usually considered rude, was because it was clear that the source of irritation is more than the always-rude unsolicited advice.
It's because of our overwhelmingly eating-disordered culture, which is devoted to accusing everyone who isn't identical in size and shape to whoever is doing the accusing.
I also think that the facts of nutrition, weight loss, and health, whatever they are and to whatever extent they can be established, are going to be unendurably offensive to some people because of our overwhelmingly eating-disordered culture. That's why I have avoided discussing them so far.
I think that there are powerful forces in our society that are confusing people about something as basic as eating. Some of it has to do with the diet industry, which takes people's money in exchange for playing a game to make eating difficult. Of course, the house always wins.
Some of it has to do with the food industry, which certainly is selling us what we want, but is also trying to find the cheapest way of doing so, much to the detriment of public health.
Where the food industry and the diet industry play together, we get "healthy alternative" cookies that are low-fat because they're high-sugar and taste like sawdust anyway (for example), when you might as well have just eaten a couple of gorram homemade cookies, done less damage, and actually enjoyed them. (If you had time to bake them, which frankly one doesn't always, however good one's time management may be.)
Part of this is the media machine, which promotes the antics of unlicensed TV coprophiliacs, who pander to our culture's conviction that any enjoyable foodstuff (like coffee and chocolate) is somehow toxic. Or misreporting of science, which gleefully prints headlines like "Chocolate is good for you!" and presents the article in such a way as to imply that it's therefore healthy to eat Kit Kats, which no-one really believes anyway, and the relevant facts are always, always omitted.
Some of it has to do with our own neuroses, which lead us to overwrite children's appetites with feelings of moral condemnation if they fail to eat whatever arbitrary amount of food we decide to serve them. My dad went through a phase of this, and it was very difficult for me, becaue he habitually loaded the plate right to the very edges. When I protested, he sneered, "Isn't the world cruel to you! Instead of starving you, it overfeeds you!" In other words, I was being punished for having an abundance of food, because he starved when he was a child. Then at a certain point he forgot that he had ever expected me to eat everything on my plate, but I only found this out when he became equally offended because I was forcing down my food.
Only when my father was in his sixties did he feel safe enough to leave food on his plate, and not to load up his plate with enough food for two or three normal meals.
My maternal grandmother, unusually for her generation, didn't believe in making children eat every bite, so my mother never got her appetite messed with. Therefore, she didn't feel any need to mess with my appetite, either.
I could go on (I have gone on) but it's time for lunch...
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fiddleback:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Do you think anyone chooses to be fat?
That must be the stupidest question anyone has asked this year.
Eating is a voluntary action in human beings.
Eating is. Getting overweight isn't. I would hope that no-one's going to make a naive and simplistic equivalent between the two at this stage in the thread.
Posted by Nonpropheteer (# 5053) on
:
I too was raised to clear my plate - thats why certain diets work better for me (like Atkins) because I control what I put on plate. When I'm not on a diet, I go for seconds etc. The killer for me is all-you-can-eat buffets. For some reason, knowing I can eat as much as I want for less than $10 sends me into a feeding frenzy. And the more expensive the buffet, the more I think I have to eat - as the people here could affirm.
Posted by Fiddleback (# 2809) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Eating is. Getting overweight isn't. I would hope that no-one's going to make a naive and simplistic equivalent between the two at this stage in the thread.
Eat too much = get fat.
Happy to oblige.
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
And you really think it is always that simple?
Posted by I_am_not_Job (# 3634) on
:
/tangent
quote:
I could go on (I have gone on) but it's time for lunch...
/tangent
Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on
:
The equation of calories in / calories burnt is very simple.
P
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Pyx_e:
The equation of calories in / calories burnt is very simple.
P
Yes. Human pychology is, however, rarely very simple.
Posted by JimS (# 10766) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Pyx_e:
The equation of calories in / calories burnt is very simple.
P
I used to think this too. Someone I know was proscribed meds that are notorious for weight gain. She was given the standard Heart Foundation low calory diet and still put weight on. The manufacturers of the meds paid for a course for the nurses at the hospital where they learned that the meds interfere with the insulin levels. She went onto a low GI diet and the weight came back off. The low GI diet is a lot less gimicky than Atkins.
[ 07. July 2006, 13:17: Message edited by: JimS ]
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fiddleback:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Eating is. Getting overweight isn't. I would hope that no-one's going to make a naive and simplistic equivalent between the two at this stage in the thread.
Eat too much = get fat.
Happy to oblige.
FB - so, Genie, on less than 1000 calories a day, is simply "eating too much".
That is simplicity to the point of idiocy, FB.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Yes, you need to factor in other...er...factors like differences in metabolism (both between individuals and pertaining to the same individual but at different times and in different circumstances)
Posted by I_am_not_Job (# 3634) on
:
My tri club friends who are training for Ironman and eating 3-4000 cals a day are losing weight. However, if they didn't eat that they would not have sufficient fuel to enable them to do their training and would end up totally drained. Genie, it really might be worth considerably up-ing your intake to see if you are in starvation mode.
Posted by Fiddleback (# 2809) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
quote:
Originally posted by Pyx_e:
The equation of calories in / calories burnt is very simple.
P
Yes. Human pychology is, however, rarely very simple.
That's because people these days don't laugh at fat people enough so they end up thinking it's acceptable to take up two seats on the bus.
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
Oh right, your not trying to make a serious contribution to the thread. Got it. Ta.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
I might have known. Doesn't he have a bridge to hide under?
Posted by muchafraid (# 10738) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Nonpropheteer:
I too was raised to clear my plate - thats why certain diets work better for me (like Atkins) because I control what I put on plate. When I'm not on a diet, I go for seconds etc.
Why do we have to be on a specific diet regime to not over-eat? I've always found that it's much easier to make small, realistic changes in my eating habits than to go from one extreme (the legalistic diet) to the other (gorging myself). For example, I've just sort of committed to eating smaller portions.
When we go out to eat at an American, here's-more-food-than-you-eat-in-a-week restaurant, we split a plate. We end up feeling satisfied at the end of the meal instead of feeling like we need to be rolled home.
Also, NP, you might try avoiding buffets. Not only do they make people feel like they have to "get their money's worth," the nutritional value of the food in them leaves much to be desired.
But the soft serve ice cream is soooooooo tempting!
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on
:
Hosting
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Doesn't he have a bridge to hide under?
You are free to ignore Fiddleback's contributions. You are not free to indulge in personal attacks in Purgatory.
RuthW
Purgatory host
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
Sorry. Let me try again.
FB - do you have a serious point to make?
Posted by Fiddleback (# 2809) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Sorry. Let me try again.
FB - do you have a serious point to make?
Sure do. We live in a society in which over-consumption and obesity have become socially acceptable, so there is less incentive than before to eat normally, exercise and be thin.
What spurred former chancelor Nigel Lawson to lose weight was his awareness of all the sniggering in the House of Commons, a notoriously cruel arena, every time he lumbered to his feet to make a speech, and that no one really took him seriously.
Here he is then and here he is now.
And here is Nigella.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Hmmm...I only clicked on the Nigella link...wonder why?
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fiddleback:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Sorry. Let me try again.
FB - do you have a serious point to make?
Sure do. We live in a society in which over-consumption and obesity have become socially acceptable, so there is less incentive than before to eat normally, exercise and be thin.
But there are many people who eat normally - indeed are half starved - exercise and aren't thin. My problem with your statements is the implication that if one does these things, one will be thin, and therefore overweight people are all greedy slobs who deserve to be fat. But you're not saying that, are you?
Posted by Fiddleback (# 2809) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
But there are many people who eat normally - indeed are half starved - exercise and aren't thin.
Funny how none of them live in Malawi though, isn't it?
quote:
My problem with your statements is the implication that if one does these things, one will be thin, and therefore overweight people are all greedy slobs who deserve to be fat. But you're not saying that, are you?
Yes I am.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
So let me get this straight. Someone eats less than 1000 calories a day. They exercise. They're still gaining weight.
And you think they're a greedy slob? I defy you to survive on what Genie's eating.
Posted by muchafraid (# 10738) on
:
What I'm wondering, FB, is what you would say to someone suffering from hyperthyriodism or thyroid cancer?
Certainly their weight gain isn't due to slobbishness...
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Yep, people gain weight for all sorts of reasons. Some, like me, because they're gutbuckets, but others for reasons (psychological and/ or physical) way beyond their control - and FB's response is to laugh at them?! Words fail.
As a side note, the only time I've managed to lose weight recently is by giving up the booze for Lent (lost 5lbs)...which kind of suggests I drink too much...
[Splenig
]
[ 07. July 2006, 15:33: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
Posted by I_am_not_Job (# 3634) on
:
Ah yes, the 'hidden' calories in booze.
I think the problem is that those with cancer, thyroid problems etc are actually the minority, and it's more common to hear the blame game, cf. suing McDonalds, I have no time (but I do know what's happening in Eastenders) and people explaining that the problem is they get out of breath when exercising (really? that's not like the point or anything
) .
C'mon shipmates, let's be honest, the latter, not the former is the more prevalent malaise that is affecting the West. (Whereas, obviously everyone here on the ship has a genuine excuse for not looking like Elle McPherson or Brad Pitt
)
Posted by muchafraid (# 10738) on
:
Cancer or candy, it's not right to laugh at someone who is overweight.
Posted by Fiddleback (# 2809) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by muchafraid:
What I'm wondering, FB, is what you would say to someone suffering from hyperthyriodism or thyroid cancer?
"Cut the cake, fatso" probably.
If their malady was genuine, their weight gain would be due to water retention, not build up of fat, which, as any fool can figure out, requires calory intake.
Posted by Fiddleback (# 2809) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by muchafraid:
It's not right to laugh at someone who is overweight.
They'll thank you for it later. If you tell them they're beautiful, glamorous or even voluptuous they'll just go and eat more doughnuts.
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
:
FB, you [personal attack thought better of, since this is Purgatory after all. Besides, I think you're just yanking my chain].
Can you tell the difference between water retention/edema and ordinary fat just by looking?
And would you say the same to a person with a large abdominal tumor, or to someone who is eight months pregnant but looks simply fat?
Posted by muchafraid (# 10738) on
:
Or, we could try finding a solution to the problem.
Anyone else ready to move on?
Posted by magdalenegospel (# 11619) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fiddleback:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
[qb]But there are many people who eat normally - indeed are half starved - exercise and aren't thin.
Funny how none of them live in Malawi though, isn't it?
Does this include Malawi's famed healthcare provision?
As far as people and diets are concerned - how much caffeine do people consume that are overweight? I know that's also one of my besetting sins that can put on weight, because it seems to encourage my body to store things more "efficiently" than normal. For some people it seems to fill them up/stop them gaining weight though...
Posted by Fiddleback (# 2809) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by muchafraid:
Or, we could try finding a solution to the problem.
Such as "Don't eat all the cake"?
Posted by muchafraid (# 10738) on
:
Originally posted by magdalenegospel:
quote:
As far as people and diets are concerned - how much caffeine do people consume that are overweight?
It probably goes hand-in-hand with the fact that most of the products containing caffeine also contain loads of sugar
Soda has always been my enemy. I always thought it was just because of the sugar/carb content. But you're right, it probably also has something to do with the caffeine. Never thought of that before.
[ 07. July 2006, 16:32: Message edited by: muchafraid ]
Posted by magdalenegospel (# 11619) on
:
Artificial sweeteners also screw up insulin levels, and induce cravings, and those are in Squash/Soda in abundance.
I tend to be better off using apple juice to sweeten things, or a little honey.
Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on
:
Let's assume Fiddleback is right and all the heavy people secretly eat two dozen glazed doughnuts and a half-gallon Premium Pralines and Carmel ice-cream with hot fudge sauce every night.(My personal fantasy.)
Why not? Why do they deserve ridicule and censure? Why can't we accept the fact that some people are large and some are small the way we accept blue eyes and dark eyes, tall and short, musical and tone deaf?
Posted by I_am_not_Job (# 3634) on
:
quote:
Why can't we accept the fact that some people are large and some are small the way we accept blue eyes and dark eyes, tall and short, musical and tone deaf?
Well, Twilight, apart from it being bad for their health and society paying the cost of that (which is a glib answer, but possibly the one Fiddleback is thinking of - I'm not sure if he's from the UK or not and so whether or not he has a state-funded healthcare system that he doesn't want abused - I disgress), their friends and family have to cope with the impact of obesity on that person's life, which may involve stuff like small children not being able to play with their (grand)parent, through to trips, walks, excursions, in fact, daily living being restricted by the person's immobility, with the extreme of seeing them get self-induced illnesses, e.g. type 2 diabetes, which then cause them pain, discomfort, illness and depression - which the friends and family are obviously sympathetic to but also grieved by and hurt by as it's self inflicted. Extreme obesity can have a similar impact on a family as that tragic sight of a life-long smoker who still smokes despite having had lung-cancer etc etc. and who's got a voice box replacement. The difference is, although there may be psychological reasons for over-eating, food in itself is not addictive like nicotine, but that doesn't mean there aren't grounds for CBT etc.
My heart aches everytime my father-in-law loads his plate with cakes/cream/butter whatever, having just taken his insulin, and send an SOS prayer to God that he'll let him live to at least see his first grandchild, who we're planning but haven't conceived yet.
Posted by Posy (# 10858) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fiddleback:
Funny how none of them live in Malawi though, isn't it?
I have to agree. You don't find the last people standing in an area of famine attributing it to the fact that they have a slow metabolism, or indeed saying that they have been gaining weight despite eating nothing at all for the previous three weeks.
I have some painful experience myself, having always until recently carried more weight than is healthy. I also have a chronic neurological condition which is exacerbated by weight gain, and had been told that I needed to lose some weight before it would be safe for me to conceive. I was therefore referred to a weight management project.
Over a period of around 18 months, some honest food and activity diarising and some counselling, I came to see that in truth I ate and drank much more than I would have ever owned up to or accepted previously and that I exercised much less than I would have ever owned up to or accepted. I found too that my self-destructive lifestyle - made worse by the fact that I routinely denied that I had unhealthy eating and drinking habits - served to conceal my real unhappiness with various aspects of my life and relationships.
I am very lucky that I had the incentive and the support (God bless the NHS and all who work in her) to go through this process. I now have a beautiful baby and weigh 30lbs less than before I started the whole process. My own health is stable with medication.
I spent years telling myself that diets don't work. I still think that diets don't work. But a healthy eating plan and exercise does work. I trust the doctors and the dieticians who have told me that there is no alternative. But if there are underlying issues preventing you from implementing a plan, then you need to crack these too. I'm lucky that I got help to do this.
So to return to the opening post - was it my fault I was fat (not broke, fortunately)? Yes and no. My own eating habits and lifestyle resulted in my gaining and not losing weight - so yes. But the eating habits and lifestyle were disguising some bigger problems which I needed to understand and solve - so to a certain extent no.
Posted by ken (# 2460) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
But there are many people who eat normally - indeed are half starved - exercise and aren't thin.
Much as I hate to agree with FFB, the old codger, that cannot be true.
Two people might eat the same amount and one lose weight and the other not, that's just because people are different.
But it is obviously and simply the case that is someone is consistently putting on weight (other than hydration) then they must be taking in more food than they are using. There is just no other possibility (unless they have invented the spontaeous generation of matter of course).
Someone might feel hungry and put on weight but that is because they, for what ever reason, want to eat more food than they are using.
I'm a lot fatter than you are, If I can belive your photos. And I am a fidgetter, with (as far as I know) a high metabolic rate. And I rarely feel hungry (in fact I don't remember ever feeling hungry at all until I was about 40 years old).
But I am fat because I eat and drink more than I burn off. Simple as that. There can be no other reason short of magic.
Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by I_am_not_Job:
quote:
Why can't we accept the fact that some people are large and some are small the way we accept blue eyes and dark eyes, tall and short, musical and tone deaf?
Well, Twilight, apart from it being bad for their health and society paying the cost of that (which is a glib answer, but possibly the one Fiddleback is thinking of - I'm not sure if he's from the UK or not and so whether or not he has a state-funded healthcare system that he doesn't want abused - I disgress), their friends and family have to cope with the impact of obesity on that person's life, which may involve stuff like small children not being able to play with their (grand)parent, through to trips, walks, excursions, in fact, daily living being restricted by the person's immobility, with the extreme of seeing them get self-induced illnesses, e.g. type 2 diabetes, which then cause them pain, discomfort, illness and depression - which the friends and family are obviously sympathetic to but also grieved by and hurt by as it's self inflicted. Extreme obesity can have a similar impact on a family as that tragic sight of a life-long smoker who still smokes despite having had lung-cancer etc etc. and who's got a voice box replacement. The difference is, although there may be psychological reasons for over-eating, food in itself is not addictive like nicotine, but that doesn't mean there aren't grounds for CBT etc.
My heart aches everytime my father-in-law loads his plate with cakes/cream/butter whatever, having just taken his insulin, and send an SOS prayer to God that he'll let him live to at least see his first grandchild, who we're planning but haven't conceived yet.
My skinny father lived to almost ninety, critical and cranky to all of us, grandson included, right up till the end. I loved him and was glad he lasted so long but I just can't buy into the idea that anyone owes it to other people to try and live as long as possible, particularly if you're asking someone to be hungry 24/7 just so that they'll be around for the annual family holiday events.
As for "society paying the cost", I used to hear that about smoking all the time. The truth is that while smoking and obesity can sometimes run up medical costs through related illnesses; these same illnesses cause people to die younger -- saving years and years worth of social-security, nursing home and medical costs that far overshoot the other costs.
Sooner or later we all die and, I've heard that over 90% of the average person's lifetime medical expenses are spent during his final six-months. That's true whatever the cause or the age.
I think it's really nobody else's business how much we chose to eat or smoke as long as we aren't forcing anyone else to do it.
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on
:
Oh God. You had to bring in smoking. Now we'll have that argument on this trainwreck of a thread as well.
Posted by Hooker's Trick (# 89) on
:
Everyone should smoke more. Keeps you from getting fat.
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by I_am_not_Job:
My heart aches everytime my father-in-law loads his plate with cakes/cream/butter whatever, having just taken his insulin, and send an SOS prayer to God that he'll let him live to at least see his first grandchild, who we're planning but haven't conceived yet.
Yes, but people make choices every day that carry risk, or may potentially shorten their life. Why get especially incensed about weight? Do you get similarly heartsore about relatives who enjoy white-water canoing, driving, rock-climbing (reputedly the most dangerous common sport in the UK), hillwalking, motorcycling, etc? What's so special about the unquantifiable risk accepted by people who chose not to be as fit or as thin as they could be?
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
OK, Ruth is right, this is one of those arguments that goes round and round and never gets anywhere (kind of like the treadmill at the gym) and has derailed a perfectly good thread, and I'm oneof the main culprits. Mea culpa. So I'm going to try not to post again unless somebody really, really annoys me.
For the record (so I can cut it out for reference the next time)
- I believe that losing or maintaining weight is more difficult for some people than for others, so smugness should be kept to a minimum.
- I think that when people, for whatever reason that seems good to them, prioritise other things above exercise and diet, they are making a valid choice and do not need to be patronised, lectured or told that not enjoying exercise is something they'd get over if only they tried harder.
- I agree with Twilight.
- I agree with what Telepath said about an eating-disordered society. Food simply should not be so fraught.
So there.
Posted by OliviaG (# 9881) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Rat and trimmed by OliviaG:
- I believe that losing or maintaining weight is more difficult for some people than for others, so smugness should be kept to a minimum.
- I think that when people, for whatever reason that seems good to them, prioritise other things above exercise and diet, they are making a valid choice and do not need to be patronised, lectured or told that not enjoying exercise is something they'd get over if only they tried harder.
Great summary, Rat. I would add that it seems to me very presumptuous for another person to assume they how and why an individual deals with these two points, since there are so many factors that may be private and hence unknown.
And I'm amazed that we made it to Page 6 without anyone saying gluttony is a sin. ITTWACW.
OliviaG
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by muchafraid:
Anyone else ready to move on?
More than.
Posted by professor kirke (# 9037) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
Why not? Why do they deserve ridicule and censure?
Because we think they shouldn't be fat, of course. This is why I also point my finger, throw my head back and have a good, hearty laugh at the people in my office who smoke, the kids I treat who are addicted to heroin*, and anyone who speeds, jaywalks, bungee jumps or does rockclimbing. Don't they know how unsafe they are? Well, they will when they hear us cackle.
-Digory
*Oh man, there was this one girl that I was working with, 21 and with a kid, who was completely addicted to heroin and cocaine. Boy did I ever laugh in her face! Her arms were covered in abscesses and sores and she lived on the streets. How else would she have ever been motivated to change if it weren't for me laughing and pointing and making fun?
Apparently I should have laughed more though, because she died about a month ago. So now I just laugh in her mom's face, hoping that will help to make sure that she doesn't have any more loser drug-addict kids who die in the streets of Baltimore.
Ridicule is the only motivator we have, after all.
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
Weight issues are closely associated both with poverty and with low self-esteem.
Obviously laughing at people will therefore be a great help.
Posted by Telepath (# 3534) on
:
Originally posted by RuthW:
quote:
this trainwreck of a thread
Trainwreck or not, it certainly is an exhibition of the ol' zeitgeist.
Some would say it answers the OP's question.
Posted by Fiddleback (# 2809) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by professor kirke:
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
Why not? Why do they deserve ridicule and censure?
Because we think they shouldn't be fat, of course. This is why I also point my finger, throw my head back and have a good, hearty laugh at the people in my office who smoke, the kids I treat who are addicted to heroin*, and anyone who speeds, jaywalks, bungee jumps or does rockclimbing. Don't they know how unsafe they are? Well, they will when they hear us cackle.
-Digory
*Oh man, there was this one girl that I was working with, 21 and with a kid, who was completely addicted to heroin and cocaine. Boy did I ever laugh in her face! Her arms were covered in abscesses and sores and she lived on the streets. How else would she have ever been motivated to change if it weren't for me laughing and pointing and making fun?
Apparently I should have laughed more though, because she died about a month ago. So now I just laugh in her mom's face, hoping that will help to make sure that she doesn't have any more loser drug-addict kids who die in the streets of Baltimore.
Ridicule is the only motivator we have, after all.
Er... lets try this again shall we? Food, unlike heroin, is NOT addictive. Being fat is a result of choice. It is anti-social. To compare yourself and your roly-poly chums to heroin addicts in your search for sympathy really is quite contemptible.
Posted by magdalenegospel (# 11619) on
:
We are addicted to food. Without it, we die.
Just as painkillers produce a dependency that at a particular level becomes a problem, so too does food.
Not all people who take painkillers become addicted to them. Not all people who have the meningococcal bacterium develop meningococcal meningitis, even though 4 in 10 people carry the bacterium in their throats.
Some people do. No one knows why. Not all people to whom bad things happen get PTSD, but some do.
The mystery of Imago Dei is that we are all unique. We do not all respond in exactly the same way to exactly the same stimulus.
Some people are addicted to Grace, others can take it or leave it. Others don't care. Yet at some level we all need it.
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
OK, I know I said I wasn't going to post again, and I'm not. But I just thought of something, with reference to Telepath's eating-disordered culture, and the our appetite related neuroses.
Mothers nowadays are recommended to breastfeed on demand (sorry, I have a very limited range of interests at the moment) - whenever and wherever the baby wants to eat, it should be given as much as it wants. Our breastfeeding support group is almost entirely taken up with new mothers panicking that their baby is either not getting enough milk, and won't thrive, or is getting too much milk and will get fat. It seems from talking to other mums that one of the main reasons people give up breastfeeding is that they are uncomfortable with not knowing how much the baby is eating, they want to be able to measure and control. The group organisers spend most of their time explaining that no, the baby will not overeat or undereat, it will take what it needs and not more or less*. One of the big advantages of breastfeeding on demand is that if the baby is allowed to regulate its own feeding, it has much lower chance of being unhealthily overweight, either in babyhood or later. A baby's appetite is uncorrupted.
So what is it we do to ourselves to turn happy babies eating what they actually need (and appearing to enjoy it!) into neurotic over- and under-eaters who spend their lives agonising over food?
* I'm sure there are individual instances where this is not true due to illness or some other problem. But as a rule.
Posted by muchafraid (# 10738) on
:
Originally posted by Fiddleback: quote:
Er... lets try this again shall we? Food, unlike heroin, is NOT addictive. Being fat is a result of choice. It is anti-social. To compare yourself and your roly-poly chums to heroin addicts in your search for sympathy really is quite contemptible.
But the foods you argue that "slobs" stuff themselves with (i.e., donuts, pastries, etc.), are the foods that contain addictive elements. Sugar has been proven to be addiction-forming. So, either acknowledge that the people with the weight issues you have been attacking can sometimes form dependencies on the foods that harm them, OR give some credit to the fact that there are many reasons people gain weight.
Regardless of whether it's donut-eaters or cancer strugglers or people with depression or couch potatoes - it's ignorant to make fun of them.
Posted by Father Gregory (# 310) on
:
What monster have I created? I never dreamed that this thread would inflate like this. It certainly reveals the sensitivity of these subjects in our culture. Sorry to interrupt.
Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on
:
Interesting that the discussion is far more heated about weight than finances. Why is that?
Posted by duchess (# 2764) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fiddleback:
Er... lets try this again shall we? Food, unlike heroin, is NOT addictive. Being fat is a result of choice. It is anti-social. To compare yourself and your roly-poly chums to heroin addicts in your search for sympathy really is quite contemptible.
Ah, good. I have been waiting to see if Fiddleback would repeat this tiresome, judgemental, crap that he has posted in every single thread he can about this sensitive subject. This is truly the most ignorant, bigoted statement I have read in ages on the ship. Well done.
I have been dx'd with something called Metabolic Syndrome. I got it treated and lost over 44 lbs. I had nightmares and such from my sugar levels going up and down. And no, I am not diabetec. But I could be if I just let things go.
This is a more common condition than anyone cares to realise. More common each and every day by the ubiquitous high-frutose corn syrup everything has in it these days. It is helped by cutting back on bad refine carbs and working out. I mainly got helped though by diabetec drugs.
I speak from experience on this topic. I do like to eat like a fat cow. And I enjoy doing so. But so did my wonderful Rev. Grandpa, who was thin as a stick his whole life (may he RIP).
There is much diversity on people's metabolic conditions. You sir, seem to enjoy posting hurtful drivel like this. A pity for a man of the cloth.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fiddleback:
Er... lets try this again shall we? Food, unlike heroin, is NOT addictive. Being fat is a result of choice. It is anti-social. To compare yourself and your roly-poly chums to heroin addicts in your search for sympathy really is quite contemptible.
Monosodium glutamate, anyone?
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by duchess:
quote:
Originally posted by Fiddleback:
Er... lets try this again shall we? Food, unlike heroin, is NOT addictive. Being fat is a result of choice. It is anti-social. To compare yourself and your roly-poly chums to heroin addicts in your search for sympathy really is quite contemptible.
Ah, good. I have been waiting to see if Fiddleback would repeat this tiresome, judgemental, crap that he has posted in every single thread he can about this sensitive subject. This is truly the most ignorant, bigoted statement I have read in ages on the ship. Well done.
Really? I can't think of any statement made by any shipmate at any time that was more bigoted, ignorant or prejudiced. In terms of sheer offensiveness, it is up there with the the most mindless statements posted by BNP trolls.
Can't someone please call him to hell?
Posted by magdalenegospel (# 11619) on
:
He wants to be called to hell. Maybe if no one reacted to anything but his best behaviour he might improve.
Much as people in dire financial situations might improve if they were 'rewarded' for being 'good'. Instead of having pension funds raided.
I think the embarrassment around food but not money is that it's far easier to blame the economic variability etc than it is with food.
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
Can't someone please call him to hell?
Oh, why bother, it's not worth the effort. He wants attention, or he wants to hurt people. Either way, why give him a platform? Best to ignore him, I reckon.
Posted by Nonpropheteer (# 5053) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fiddleback:
Er... lets try this again shall we? Food, unlike heroin, is NOT addictive. Being fat is a result of choice. It is anti-social. To compare yourself and your roly-poly chums to heroin addicts in your search for sympathy really is quite contemptible.
Sugar is addictive. That is one reason it is the first thing to go when you start dieting, and it is the cause of most people's relapse. Once your body is used to a certain level of sugar, it causes cravings so as to maintain those levels. Heavy users frequently suffer withdrawal symptoms from lack of sugar.
Granted, the addiction and withdrawal is nowhere near as intense as with heroin or other drugs, but the physical and psychological aspects of addiction are there just the same.
As for overeating being anti-social -bollocks. Im my experience more people overeat at social gatherings than on their own.
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on
:
Hosting
Papio, magdalenegospel, and Rat: Either call Fiddleback to Hell or don't. But don't personalize your dispute with Fiddleback in Purgatory while you're trying to decide.
RuthW
Purgatory host
Posted by Fiddleback (# 2809) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Nonpropheteer:
Sugar is addictive. That is one reason it is the first thing to go when you start dieting, and it is the cause of most people's relapse. Once your body is used to a certain level of sugar, it causes cravings so as to maintain those levels. Heavy users frequently suffer withdrawal symptoms from lack of sugar.
Really? How very interesting, Nonpropheteer. And what are those symptoms? Do you think they are psychological or physiological? Remember that withdrawal from heroin causes symptoms not unlike a very heavy dose of 'flu for over a week.
quote:
As for overeating being anti-social -bollocks. Im my experience more people overeat at social gatherings than on their own.
That has been shown to be untrue again and again. People who eat socially, that is, sitting down at the table with family or friends, rather than munching in front of the telly or on the hoof, are less likely to be fatties. Most successful weight control programs don't do anything more than teach people good habits which can be listed simply as:
1.Don't buy too much (say no to BOGOF offers)
2.Cook from scratch every time
3.Eat three full meals a day sitting at the table.
But the fatties will always complain that they haven't got time to do all that.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
Sugar Addiction Info:
Society For Neuroscience
Wikipedia
Obesity Research (The North American Association for the Study of Obesity)
CBC News: Studies On Sugar Addiction
Princeton University
Hypoglycemic Health Assoc. of Australia
NOTE: There is some overlap between some articles, but they add material or a different perspective.
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
Food Addiction Info:
Break Your Food Addictions (WebMD)
[ 08. July 2006, 08:03: Message edited by: Golden Key ]
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
Hosting
Papio, magdalenegospel, and Rat: Either call Fiddleback to Hell or don't. But don't personalize your dispute with Fiddleback in Purgatory while you're trying to decide.
RuthW
Purgatory host
Sorry RuthW.
Posted by professor kirke (# 9037) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fiddleback:
Er... lets try this again shall we? Food, unlike heroin, is NOT addictive. Being fat is a result of choice. It is anti-social. To compare yourself and your roly-poly chums to heroin addicts in your search for sympathy really is quite contemptible.
I notice how you neatly tiptoed past my mentions of people who speed, rock climb and jaywalk. Those actions are dangerous to one's health, and aren't addictive at all (even if we operate on your "food is in no way addictive" assumption). Why not ridicule the speeders and the jaywalkers? So that they're motivated to stop?
I find it hard to believe that anyone who laughs at someone who is overweight is doing so out of personal concern for their health. It's much more likely that the ridiculer is trying to feel better about himself.
-Digory
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
Interesting that the discussion is far more heated about weight than finances. Why is that?
Maybe it is because we have quite any number of skinny shipmates but very few are not in debt to some degree.
Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on
:
I am no longer fat and nearly out of debt. My house is paid off and so is one of my cars - the other is at 0% interest.
Everyone needs a hobby but suing fast food is not a good one. I rarely eat hamburgers I don't cook myself and don't use credit cards for groceries...
Posted by Cosmo (# 117) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by professor kirke:
Why not ridicule the speeders and the jaywalkers?
I do, if there is is something funny about them. I defy anybody to put "fatman funny" into Google Images and not find something to laugh about. Fat people, indeed any grotesques have been thought funny for thousands of years.
Fiddleback is right. The reason people are fat in the Western World is that, for 99% of them, they eat and drink too much much and do too little exercise.
It;s the difference between not buying the Paul Newman 'eco-friendly' processed pasta sauce and instead making your own. It's the difference between having the third and fourth glasses of wine and stopping after the second. It's the difference between stuffing down huge amounts of food whilst not talking to anybody else just watching the telly and talking to someone whilst eating and realising you don't need any more food.
If you start making your own food instead of letting others process your meals for you, stop shovelling it in your gob whilst Big Brother is on and also start moving your legs once in a while during the day, then (if you don't drink a bottle of wine or six GIN's a day) you probably won't get too fat.
Cosmo
[ 08. July 2006, 22:47: Message edited by: Cosmo ]
Posted by professor kirke (# 9037) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Cosmo:
I do, if there is is something funny about them. I defy anybody to put "fatman funny" into Google Images and not find something to laugh about. Fat people, indeed any grotesques have been thought funny for thousands of years.
Cosmo, I know that you are smart enough to understand that because something does happen is not grounds enough to say that it should. People have found humor in others' misfortune since forever, most likely (schadenfreude and all that). The argument being made over and over on this thread is whether or not this type of behavior is actually helpful to the overweight person's situation, or if it could in fact be more damaging.
I have yet to see an argument for how laughing in someone's face helps them or motivates them to be less fat. I have, however, seen several implicit, unintentional arguments for why laughing at someone is a legitimate way to handle insecurity.
quote:
The reason people are fat in the Western World is that, for 99% of them, they eat and drink too much much and do too little exercise.
Not, I notice, that they are simply not laughed at enough?
-Digory
[ 08. July 2006, 23:16: Message edited by: professor kirke ]
Posted by Gort (# 6855) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by professor kirke:
People have found humor in others' misfortune since forever...
But, of course! All good humour is based on the misfortunes of others. People can laugh at my big belly all they want, I'm proud of that puppy! I was tired of looking at my ugly feet and did something about it.
Oddly enough, it only swells when I'm into drinking beer [which I haven't been interested in for a couple of years], so it's shrunken considerably. Nothing else about my lifestyle has changed; still burn off massive amounts of calories on the job and park my sedentary backside in the evenings.
I don't understand the attraction to eating mass quantities. What's so interesting about ingesting animal and plant matter through a hole in your face? Nevermind the disgusting result a few hours later! Yuck! It's a nuisance and a chore, IMO. Somedays, I won't bother eating anything till the evening when the growling gets my attention. Maybe it's the large volumes of water I drink that kill the appetite. I hover around 215 lbs. and I'm perfectly comfortable with it.
[eta: I don't owe a blessed soul a single dime, even the $28 electric bill is paid.
]
[ 09. July 2006, 00:00: Message edited by: Gort ]
Posted by Cod (# 2643) on
:
Coming back to Britain for a few weeks after living in New Zealand, I am struck by the amount of 'victim mentality' to be observed in people around me.
When an accident happens, or some unplanned state of affairs (such as obesity) results, firstly there must be someone to blame. Secondly, the victim is seen as a morally good person, simply by virtue of being a victim.
This view of things lacks the mechanism for a person to choose to do a morally good act. According to this view, morally good people don't act. Things happen to them.
So if a person buys TV dinners from Tesco even though he has the vague idea that they're bad for him, it's entirely Tesco's fault.
Fitness is easy for me. OK, I cook from scratch, drink relatively little, and cycle about twenty miles a day. I am stick thin. If I wasn't doing any of those things I suspect that I would still be thin, although I would feel less healthy.
But it seems perfectly obvious to me that I am an exception; as a general rule 1) a normal balanced diet (and not any of this Atkins bollocks) combined with 2) regular exercise is going to result in a person not being overweight.
When my (formerly) fat neighbour's father had a heart attack my neighbour cut down on the booze, cut out bad food from his diet and, to use a Tebbitism - he got on his bike. The pounds fell off him. He got a grip - plain and simple.
I should add that I think it's perfectly possible to be a healthy fat person, just as it is possible to be healthy and very thin as I am.
[ 09. July 2006, 10:22: Message edited by: Cod ]
Posted by ladyinred (# 10688) on
:
Just a thought I am going to throw in here, that I don't know exactly what to make of, but anyway...
i am interested by the references in this thread to people's weight problems in the 'West'. The reason i bring this up is that obesity is practically non-existent in the Western country that I live in ie France. You very very rarely see extremely overweight people here - it just doesn't exist. True, you don't see overweight people in Mali, but I think it's more interesting that you don't see them in France
And it's not like the French don't eat a lot of food - the average French day is a small breakfast (bread and coffee), enormous lunch (meat and 2 veg, bread, salad, cheese etc) possibly an afternoon snack and light evening meal.
i suspect there are a couple of reasons for this. French people, i think, are more likely to know how to cook and use proper ingredients, and they appreciate quality over mere cheapness. Because people are brought up eating right and using good healthy ingredients, they never start the cycle of going on diets and confusing their metabolisms. Also they are more likely to sit down at the table and take their time over the meal instead of eating on the run (someone did a very interesting experiment once - I heard it on radio 4 so it must be true
- they went in McDonalds restaurants in the US and in France and timed how long it takes people to eat the meal. The average French person takes twice as long to eat the food).
But I really think the main reason French people can eat a lot of food and maintain a healthy weight is that they just don't have all the hang-ups about food that Anglo-saxons seem to have. They know how to enjoy food without feeling remotely guilty about it and have a healthy respect for it. Food is their good friend and they have a long and happy cooperation
Red x
/hope this isn't too tangential but thought it was worth bringing up
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Cosmo:
If you start making your own food instead of letting others process your meals for you, stop shovelling it in your gob whilst Big Brother is on and also start moving your legs once in a while during the day, then (if you don't drink a bottle of wine or six GIN's a day) you probably won't get too fat.
Yes. If you do that, in all probability, you'll settle at a weight that is healthy and correct for your particular body.
Of course, unless you're very lucky, that weight won't fit societies preconceptions of what you should look like, so people will still feel entitled to sneer at you, accuse you of 'shovelling food in your gob', cast aspersions at your leisure habits, and generally deride and patronise you. Then, unless you're terribly strong minded, it'll be back on the starvation diet\overindulgence treadmill as you try to fit your square peg into our culture's round hole.
(Er... I'm not very sure about that last sentence. You know what I mean).
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by ladyinred:
i am interested by the references in this thread to people's weight problems in the 'West'. The reason i bring this up is that obesity is practically non-existent in the Western country that I live in ie France. You very very rarely see extremely overweight people here - it just doesn't exist. True, you don't see overweight people in Mali, but I think it's more interesting that you don't see them in France
And it's not like the French don't eat a lot of food - the average French day is a small breakfast (bread and coffee), enormous lunch (meat and 2 veg, bread, salad, cheese etc) possibly an afternoon snack and light evening meal.
Actually, that is very true. I worked in France for a couple of months and was very struck by the lack of really fat people, and also by the amount of food people ate. Wonderful lunches in the absolutely brilliant company canteen, and I never saw anybody picking at a lettuce leaf because they were 'on a diet'. The first few times I tried to wriggle out of having a starter and dessert, people actually laughed. I soon gave up and went with the flow.
What I did notice, though, was that people seemed to spend time thinking through their meal, and balance it a lot more than we do in the UK. So if they had a cheesy starter, they'd have fruit for dessert; if they wanted a rich dessert they'd have a salad starter and a lighter main course. They might have chips one day, but not every day, and generally seemed much more aware of and thoughtful about what they were eating. Here we seem to to only have the extremes of food puritanism versus complete carelessness. The French I worked with seemed to be able to combine great enjoyment with good health.
I was eating in hotels, restaurants and the wonderful canteen, and drinking wine regularly, normally a recipe for weight gain - but came back home exactly the same weight as I went away. If I'd cut out the wine I'd probably have lost weight.
Posted by xSx (# 7210) on
:
I wonder if there's also something in the fact that the main meal in France (and Spain as well, which IIRC also has fewer obese people than the Uk and USA) is taken at midday, rather than in the evening?
I have heard/read some things that said that eating late at night results in more weight gain because the body doesn't digest properly before we go to sleep. I don't know if that's scientifically proven or not, but I thought I'd throw it into the discussion.
Posted by Fiddleback (# 2809) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by professor kirke:
I have yet to see an argument for how laughing in someone's face helps them or motivates them to be less fat.
Although I have already given you the example of Nigella's dad. He got so fed up with the Hon member for Bolsover shouting out "Who ate all the pies?" every time he stood up in the House, he did something about it and lost weight. It does work, I promise you.
Posted by LatePaul (# 37) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fiddleback:
quote:
Originally posted by professor kirke:
I have yet to see an argument for how laughing in someone's face helps them or motivates them to be less fat.
Although I have already given you the example of Nigella's dad. He got so fed up with the Hon member for Bolsover shouting out "Who ate all the pies?" every time he stood up in the House, he did something about it and lost weight. It does work, I promise you.
Nigel Lawson decided to lose weight when his doctor scared him with stories of what might happen if he carried on as he was.
Posted by professor kirke (# 9037) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fiddleback:
quote:
Originally posted by professor kirke:
I have yet to see an argument for how laughing in someone's face helps them or motivates them to be less fat.
Although I have already given you the example of Nigella's dad. He got so fed up with the Hon member for Bolsover shouting out "Who ate all the pies?" every time he stood up in the House, he did something about it and lost weight. It does work, I promise you.
Wow, n=1! This is what Stephen Colbert refers to as "a margin of error of +/- the facts."
quote:
Originally posted by ladyinred:
The reason i bring this up is that obesity is practically non-existent in the Western country that I live in ie France. You very very rarely see extremely overweight people here - it just doesn't exist.
My mother-in-law knew a woman who moved here from France who was stick thin. She had stuck to a diet of bread and cheese while in France, for the most part. Upon moving here (to the US), she changed nothing about her diet, and gained 30 pounds in a month or so.
For whatever reason, it seems like a lot more of the food here is unhealthy. And to be honest, the OP's dual problems go hand in hand--it is expensive to eat healthy!
These aren't excuses, but they are reasons for understandable aversion, in my opinion.
-Digory
Posted by M. (# 3291) on
:
I don't quite understand the 'it's expensive to eat healthily' comments.
In my own experience (and that's all it is, I make no universal claims), it is much cheaper to buy good basic ingredients and cook them than to buy ready-made meals.
I understand that in some areas it can be difficult to find a shop that sells basic ingredients, but that's a different argument.
Whatever the spirit of the times, people do have personal responsibility. Of course, some people will have particular health problems but I would guess to be the minority, not the majority. Otherwise, there must be an epidemic of these problems that we never saw in the past.
Mr M. tells me that the 8 Logismoi (Evagrius'forerunner to the 7 Deadly Sins) are more about underlying preoccupations or predispositions than individual sins. Gluttony is a preoccupation with food rather than just eating too much. One way and another, whether we eat too much, too little or just think about it all the time, parts of the West are certainly subject to the logismos of gluttony.
It is not healthy.
M.
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by xSx:
I wonder if there's also something in the fact that the main meal in France (and Spain as well, which IIRC also has fewer obese people than the Uk and USA) is taken at midday, rather than in the evening? I have heard/read some things that said that eating late at night results in more weight gain because the body doesn't digest properly before we go to sleep.
I've heard this also, but the reason given was that by eating our 'main' meal at midday we are more likely to burn up the calories in activity during the afternoon, whereas we are less likely to be as physically active following a more substantial evening meal (since it is the evening and most people are thinking pub/TV/bed/relaxing generally in the evening).
Posted by Duck (# 10181) on
:
I'm dyspraxic, which is a bit like a physical version of dyslexia - i'm never going to be fast, graceful, or able to catch & throw, regardless of the training i do. I've also been clinically depressed most of the time since at least my first diagnosis age 14. I hated all sports for years. You know that fat kid who was last to be picked for teams, then got beaten up for being crap? that was me.
I ended up going through compulsive eating at school, being very overweight, and then anorexia - there's not a lot of difference, and it didn't seem to stop people wanting to kick my head in when i was thinner either. Abused running as just another form of self-harm during anorexia - it's actually rather physically damaging to run if you aren't eating properly. Ended up in hospital (thereby costing the NHS a fair amount), got better, but had to stop running for a few years as i'd done too much physical damage and it was just too easy to use it to hurt myself with it. Few years later, i was doing lots of walking to get me out of a house where there were many arguments, and thought i might as well try running again.
These days, I'm a competitive club runner, mostly ultra-distance & fell (i do stuff like double maras & running up mountains). This time in a fortnight, i should be starting my 10th mara as part of my first long-course ('Ironman') triathlon. Spent a year on the Uni rowing squad where i was one of the club's fastest ergo rowers (the other fast girl sculled for England). Got a wall full of medals, some of them even for being placed, and a cupboard stuffed with race T-shirts. I can talk the hind leg off a donkey debating the merits of isotonic vs hypotonic drinks, with or without various electrolytes, can tell an overpronator from a supinator at 100m, and i'm even starting to learn what some of the bits on my bike are called (only started Tri 2 months ago when a friend needed more race entries). In short, i've turned into one of those stupid sports-obsessed freaks. I'll never be fast, but sheer bloody-mindedness and training harder than anyone else will get you a long way.
You know what? It's just a hobby. There is nothing that makes my 30-mile weekend long runs morally better or worse than a friend spending the time watching Stargate. I haven't all of a sudden got stupider, and nor am i some sort of a superhuman.
While we're on the subject, then triathlon's frighteningly expensive - i've borrowed most of the kit but it still requires worrying amounts, and it's very difficult to find any kit that's made in decent working conditions. If you're going to slag off fat people for eating too much and not sending the money to the poor, how about selling your race bike, or just entering a few less events? Running's more cost-effective but with 4 pairs of shoes at £60 each every year, that's still a lot of vaccines to Africa i could buy with the money. A sport-honed body is at least as much a sign of affluence as being overweight.
Running isn't actually that good a way to loose weight, because you end up getting hungrier when you run so it's quite easy to put on weight through running. the only time i actually loose weight through excercise is serious ultra or tri training when i can be using upwards of 2000 cals a day extra - it's just difficult to physically get that much down, especially when you're tired and spare time is spent training. That's just not possible to do without several years of solid aerobic base beind you though - the sort of beginners run/walk programmes that non-excercisers will need to start out at won't actually burn that many calories to make much difference. Running does help with weight maintenance - apart from anything else, you end up craving proper fuel instead of junk, and eating well will noticeably make your next run feel better, so it becomes a pleasure instead of a chore. Running's also helped my self-confidence, i've made some good friends from it, and it has done muchly good things for my mental health (not enough to come off meds though). But for other people these things could come from any community activity - equally amateur dramatics as excercise.
Please don't start telling me that exercisers cost the NHS less. Runners actually seek medical help slightly more frequently than most of the population (i'd guess from a combination of injuries, and being more aware of their bodies - i'll notice a slight cold slowing me down over a 10-miler that someone sitting at a desk wouldn't be bothered by). And that's without thinking about serious sports-related accidents - a friend spent months in hospital after being seriously injured in a cycling accident - not his 'fault', but still cost the NHS a fair bit.
'Looking thin' has less to do with weight than you'd think. Even when i was around 50% of a healthy weight and had to go into hospital i was still a size 12 (UK) - that's what a few generations of Prop Forwards in the family will do for you.
Oh, and I_Am_Not_Job - if tri's so wonderful, and the only reason people don't do more exercise is 'cos they're too lazy or stupid to realise how good it is, when's your first long-course tri? ('Ironman' is a brand name used by a smug profit-obsessed franchise - if you care about your sport, support grass-roots events). Or how about maras - hope you've not done less than me, or less far (longest continuous race to date being 55 miles - i came 3rd F) If a 22-year-old depressed dyspraxic can, why not you? why not? eh? eh? EH?
Posted by Duck (# 10181) on
:
Oh, and if i take certain prescription meds, i put on weight. running 70 miles per week, or 15 hours per week of triathlon training, doesn't seem to make much difference. Keeping calories in - calories out balanced slows down weight gain on the meds, but doesn't stop it (and it's not that i'm eating more stuff & not counting it - apart from anything else it can be quite difficult for me to just eat up to the 3000+ cals/day i need for hard training).
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by M.:
I don't quite understand the 'it's expensive to eat healthily' comments.
The other side of this is that it is expensive in time, not just cash. If people are working long hours, with little money coming in, they may not have the time to prepare healthy meals, and so the ready prepared ones are easier.
The reasons for people being both poor and overweight are very complex, inter-related, and nothing like as simplistic as some people suggest.
Posted by Fiddleback (# 2809) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
The other side of this is that it is expensive in time, not just cash. If people are working long hours, with little money coming in, they may not have the time to prepare healthy meals, and so the ready prepared ones are easier.
No. They're just too fecking lazy. They've got time to watch telly and fart about on the computer.
Posted by Fiddleback (# 2809) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by LatePaul:
Nigel Lawson decided to lose weight when his doctor scared him with stories of what might happen if he carried on as he was.
I'm sure Mr Skinner assisted him in making that decision. Anyway he made the rest of us laugh.
[fixed code]
[ 09. July 2006, 20:51: Message edited by: RuthW ]
Posted by M. (# 3291) on
:
I agree, Fiddleback, it doesn't take much time to prepare healthy meals.
How long does it take to make a salad? Or a stir fry? No longer than it takes to put a packet in the microwave or oven and wait.
M.
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on
:
On the other hand, unhealthy meals can take ages.
I have just spent 20 minutes boning a duck. It is now spread out like a coverlet in the oven, thereby generating the greatest amount of crispy roast duck skin. Presently I will go an do tricky things with tins of scalding fat, to retrieve the meat juices and then proceed to do further things with orange juice, rowan jelly and kumquats.
The resultant meal will be fresh & home-cooked and pretty damn fattening, particularly when you add in the wine and the strawberries-and-cream dessert.
There is such a thing as liking food - the taste and the texture and the sheer sensuality of it all. My senses are where I live - colour and sound and smell and touch.
I have had to live, as most of do, an unsensual or countersensual life - working in ugly, arid offices, travelling in discomfort, making do with food that tastes of little but additives.
Am I unfit/overweight? Undoubtedly. But could I have lived another way? I don't honestly think so.
[ 09. July 2006, 18:19: Message edited by: Firenze ]
Posted by Duck (# 10181) on
:
I think it also takes a bit of knowing what you are doing to cook healthily.
Being a student, i don't have a lot of money for food. I'm vegan, so no expensive animal protein. I do get an organic vegbox delivered (about £4/week), and between that & the 'slightly squashed' shelf of the supermarket i get lots of fruit & veg. If you are confident in your cooking ability, this is not a problem - even if i don't recognise or name everything i'm eating, i'm fairly sure of how to make it edible, at least by 'boil or bake 'till squidgy-ish, taste, add curry paste if necessary'. But someone who's not been brought up knowing how to cook from scratch couldn't do that.
Similarly, my main protein sources are beans, pulses & nuts - cheap, fairly easy & tasty once you know where to buy & how to cook, but if you don't then you can give yourself nasty food poisoning, and a jar of lentils doesn't look very much like a meal to start off with [awaits inevitable anti-veggie comments].
Ready meals are just less intimidating if that's what you are used to, and if you've not cooked an easy tomato & lentil sauce before it'll take a lot longer to prepare, need a lot more clearing up, and the end result the first few times you cook it probably won't be that great either, if you're unlucky to the point of being inedible so that's the price of the meal & time wasted - in that situation ready meals do look like the most sensible option.
I'm not saying this is a problem for everyone, but i do think that for some it is. In the area of South Wales for which my Mum is a Health Visitor [community nurse specialising in mothers & young children], the teenage pregnancy rate is very high. A few years ago then at least the local youngsters would get Sunday Lunch with their grandparents, but now even that's less common with multiple generations of teenage parents - and cookery isn't often taught in schools, and even if it is then it's turned into studying Food Technology instead of how to make dinner.
X-post - backs away from Firenze looking worried ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
[ 09. July 2006, 18:28: Message edited by: Duck ]
Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by M.:
How long does it take to make a salad? Or a stir fry? No longer than it takes to put a packet in the microwave or oven and wait.
It's quick doing the stir-frying, but before you do that, you have to chop everything up, before which you have to wash it and de-seed it (if it has seeds), etc.
If you think it's as quick to fix a microwave meal as it is to fix a stir-fry, I'd have to conclude you've never actually fixed a stir-fry.
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
On the other hand, unhealthy meals can take ages.
I have just spent 20 minutes boning a duck. It is now spread out like a coverlet in the oven, thereby generating the greatest amount of crispy roast duck skin. Presently I will go an do tricky things with tins of scalding fat, to retrieve the meat juices and then proceed to do further things with orange juice, rowan jelly and kumquats.
Ooh, Firenze! I could be round in about 20 minutes, you know, if you've got any spare!
Posted by Sine Nomine (# 66) on
:
Ok...I hesitate to say this, being genetically programmed to be thin, but two months ago I suddenly switched to a training diet.
Now I'm really, really wanting results from the weight training I'm doing so I'm very motivated about this, but really it has not been that time consuming.
I also admit it would be harder if I were cooking for a family and not just for myself, but sauteeing fish or chicken breasts, steaming vegetables and eating lots of fresh fruit isn't that big a deal.
Plus I find that if I look most restaurants have something on the menu that isn't a heart attack waiting to happen.
Then if something really worthwhile comes down the pike once a week or so, like that delicious sounding meal Firenze is preparing, I can pig out occasionally.
Posted by Nonpropheteer (# 5053) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by M.:
I agree, Fiddleback, it doesn't take much time to prepare healthy meals.
How long does it take to make a salad? Or a stir fry? No longer than it takes to put a packet in the microwave or oven and wait.
M.
Okay, putting your salad packet in the microwave is just a bit decadent. Or weird. Or both.
Posted by rosamundi (# 2495) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by M.:
I don't quite understand the 'it's expensive to eat healthily' comments.
In my own experience (and that's all it is, I make no universal claims), it is much cheaper to buy good basic ingredients and cook them than to buy ready-made meals.
This is something I've been interested in for a bit, and because I am sad and have no life, I've just done a comparison between a roasted red pepper soup I do on a fairly frequent basis, and the cost of a tin from Sainsburys. The home made soup (ingredients: red peppers, olive oil, onions, a potato, garlic, chopped tomatoes, tomato puree, vegetable stock, salt & pepper) costs £6.47 for 4 fairly generous servings, or £1.61 a serving. Sainsburys chunky tomato, bean and vegetable soup (the closest I could get to the red pepper one) costs 57p a can, so 28.50p per serving. So you can get over five servings of crap out of a tin for the cost of one serving of rather good home-cooked soup.
And that doesn't include the cost of having the stove on for 20 minutes whilst the soup cooks and so on.
I could repeat this exercise for the chilli con carne I'm having tonight, the chicken soup in the freezer, etc and so on, but I don't think I need to.
Deborah
[ 09. July 2006, 19:30: Message edited by: rosamundi ]
Posted by Telepath (# 3534) on
:
Originally posted by Duck:
quote:
You know what? It's just a hobby. There is nothing that makes my 30-mile weekend long runs morally better or worse than a friend spending the time watching Stargate. I haven't all of a sudden got stupider, and nor am i some sort of a superhuman.
You hit the hail on the ned, Duck. You're enjoying it, so it can't possibly take credit for it as part of some healthy lifestyle thing.
Everyone knows that a healthy lifestyle involves getting up at 4am, a quick wash in a bucket of cold slime, and a good invigorating three-hour workout at the hateful activity of your choice, because being miserable builds character.
Then it's home for a nourishing bowl of birdseed slightly softened in tepid water, and some camomile tea - none of that nasty old caffeine for you! For a special treat, to stave off those midmorning cravings, you are allowed a nice bar of high-fructose diet cardboard. Remember, a treat isn't a treat unless the faintest semblance of food content has been removed and replaced with industrial substitutes.
If you're really, really good, one day you might even get your poo critiqued on national television! This is the great reward for which many strive, but few can hope to attain.
You're happier than ever on this regime... and yet, every day, inexplicably, your irrational hatred for the French gets stronger and stronger. They think they're so smart, with their leisurely meals and poncey runney cheeses? With their delicious desserts made out of highest-quality dark chocolate, decadent eggs, whole milk, and a whisper of sugar... Don't they know they should be eating the LOW FAT version, that comes in plastic protuberances of four, and does not take up valuable preparation time that you would otherwise spend ironing your hair shirt for the good of humanity? And DON'T THEY KNOW THEY SHOULD BE FAT?!??? DON'T THEY KNOW THAT IF YOU GET TOO HAPPY, SOMEBODY ELSE IN THE WORLD HAS TO BE MISERABLE? THEY'RE RUINING YOUR LIFE!!!
Posted by Sine Nomine (# 66) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by rosamundi:
I could repeat this exercise for the chilli con carne I'm having tonight, the chicken soup in the freezer, etc and so on, but I don't think I need to.
I can certainly buy an uncooked chicken and roast it at home cheaper than I can buy an already roasted chicken at the grocery store.
I can make a basic potato soup cheaper than I can buy a premium brand potato soup at the store but probably not cheaper than I can buy a can of Campbell's.
There are comparisons and then there are comparisons.
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Rat:
Ooh, Firenze! I could be round in about 20 minutes, you know, if you've got any spare!
It was every bit as tasty as I expected. (I would so recommend the kumquats - just the right touch of acidity). Nothing left but the legs - which will go into my lunchbox for tomorrow, with some mango chutney.
But can you teach what I do? I don't believe any of my present skill derived from what I was taught in school (even though I was of the generation where Domestic Science for Girls was still the norm). I learnt from experimentation in my mother's kitchen, from living on my own as a student/post student. I learned because I wantedto, because I like food. I don't think this will ever be general; there will be plenty like Gort (and a girl I used to share a flat with) who are of the 'food is fuel' tendency. There will be even more who just don't see the point, after a day's work, and the basic cleaning, childcare, daily upkeep - of faffing about with all this chopping and grating and mixing when there is such a thing as fish fingers or a pizza.
You can't lecture people into cooking everything from fresh meals, any more than you can lecture them into walking to work rather than taking the bus. We can only do so much, and frankly, can you blame most of us for preferring (when we have the choice) to do what is easy and pleasant rather than what is harder - even if that 'harder' is more healthy?
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Telepath:
Everyone knows that a healthy lifestyle involves getting up at 4am, a quick wash in a bucket of cold slime, and a good invigorating three-hour workout at the hateful activity of your choice, because being miserable builds character.
Then it's home for a nourishing bowl of birdseed slightly softened in tepid water, and some camomile tea - none of that nasty old caffeine for you! For a special treat, to stave off those midmorning cravings, you are allowed a nice bar of high-fructose diet cardboard. Remember, a treat isn't a treat unless the faintest semblance of food content has been removed and replaced with industrial substitutes.
If you're really, really good, one day you might even get your poo critiqued on national television! This is the great reward for which many strive, but few can hope to attain.
You're happier than ever on this regime... and yet, every day, inexplicably, your irrational hatred for the French gets stronger and stronger. They think they're so smart, with their leisurely meals and poncey runney cheeses? With their delicious desserts made out of highest-quality dark chocolate, decadent eggs, whole milk, and a whisper of sugar... Don't they know they should be eating the LOW FAT version, that comes in plastic protuberances of four, and does not take up valuable preparation time that you would otherwise spend ironing your hair shirt for the good of humanity? And DON'T THEY KNOW THEY SHOULD BE FAT?!??? DON'T THEY KNOW THAT IF YOU GET TOO HAPPY, SOMEBODY ELSE IN THE WORLD HAS TO BE MISERABLE? THEY'RE RUINING YOUR LIFE!!!
Telepath:
Firenze: Last weekend we roasted a duck and served it with an apricot and ginger sauce. It was very nice, but the sauce was a bit oversweet and could have done with a touch of acidity. I'll remember the kumquats.
Posted by xSx (# 7210) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by M.:
How long does it take to make a salad? Or a stir fry? No longer than it takes to put a packet in the microwave or oven and wait.
It's quick doing the stir-frying, but before you do that, you have to chop everything up, before which you have to wash it and de-seed it (if it has seeds), etc.
If you think it's as quick to fix a microwave meal as it is to fix a stir-fry, I'd have to conclude you've never actually fixed a stir-fry.
Can you buy ready-to-cook stir fry where you are Mousethief? I often do that now instead of buying a more typical ready meal, because it's about the same price. It's like a salad in a bag, but with bak choi, beansprouts, etc. etc.
Posted by RuthW (# 13) on
:
Sure, you can buy ready-to-go stir-fry vegetables in the states -- both frozen and fresh. But they're more expensive than buying your vegetables not already cut up; you either pay for someone else to cut up your vegetables or you do it yourself.
Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on
:
In other words, it costs in either money or time. Which was the original point, I believe.
Posted by muchafraid (# 10738) on
:
Not to mention the fact that those frozen stir-fry meals also include frozen "sauces" that are loaded with sugar, salt, and preservatives.
Posted by xSx (# 7210) on
:
In which case I misunderstood, sorry.
I was making a comparison between healthy and unheathly ready-meals. It is not true that it's cheaper to buy microwaveable meals than e.g. ready-chopped stir fry, and both take the same time to cook. It is not, I think, cheaper to buy pizza than ready-made salads.
If money is an issue I doubt you can really afford microwave meals of any sort, nor pizzas, etc.
ET reply to muchafraid - you can leave out the sauce, usually ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
[ 10. July 2006, 00:20: Message edited by: xSx ]
Posted by Cod (# 2643) on
:
It does not cost much in money or time to chop up a carrot and a few other veggies. It takes me less than a minute with my blunt kitchen knife
(Dee will tell you that my kitchen is a chef's worst nightmare - not much kit and blunt knives).
Making a ball of hot water crust pastry only takes me four minutes of actual work.
Cooking good food does require knowhow though, both in making ingredients taste good (or rather, not ruining them in good Anglo-Saxon fashion by boiling them to death). This is where the French have got it right, and we have got it so wrong.
It certainly takes less time than walking to the chippy and back. I'm afraid I'm with Telepath, Fiddleback etc. all the way.
And eating healthily should never require "diets".
Posted by ananke (# 10059) on
:
Once you find your strengths, cooking is easy.
For example: I cannot make pastry. Neither can my mother. But both of us make wonderful pasta. The skills for which transfer well to stir fry, stew and casseroles/bakes. All a matter of balancing the ingredients.
Which isn't to say I'm not fat, or that I'm well off. I've got a great job, as does my partner and neither of our jobs require unkind hours (mostly). I also have the 'luxury' of a partner who is actually a partner and will cook a couple of times a week.
If I'd just finished a 12 hour shift on my feet, had come home to hungry children and a partner who had also done a 12 hour shift, I wouldn't be as keen to cook. Even the ten minutes of prep it takes for my favourite recipes would seem too much.
Posted by Cod (# 2643) on
:
If you're too busy to cook (as I frequently am during the week) the simple answer is to cook food in advance, ie, on the weekend, and freeze it. All that is required is a bit of forward planning.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
I think I eat healthily; the trouble is I eat too bloody much - my appetite doesn't seem to have an 'off' switch and those two little words, "I'm full", don't seem to hit the front of my brain. It probably stems, like most people's I suspect, from all this "Think of the starving children in Poland*/ Biafra*/ Ethiopia*" mantra we were raised on. Plus I do like a little tipple or three with my meal (as do the French and Italians and, as has been pointed out, they're not lard-arses, so why am I?).
OK, that's the problem, at least for me. Fiddleback and Co, when you're not channelling Marjorie Dawes or thinking [Tom Baker voice]"Personally I think all fat people should be shot, lazy f***ers"[/Tom Baker voice]**, what should we do?
* Delete according to when you were born.
**Acknowledgements/ apologies etc to Messrs Lucas and Walliams
[ 10. July 2006, 08:25: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
Posted by Cod (# 2643) on
:
Err.. I dunno - how about serving yourself with however much your brain rather than your body reckons you need?
Or if that doesn't work, making sure you don't have junk food such as biscuits and crisps around the house (we don't because Mrs Cod succumbs to Irresistible Impulses).
Or if that's no good, eat extra and find a way of burning it off in exercise.
Or if that's no good, ten Hail Marys, ten Pater Nosters and ten strokes of the Cat I suppose.
Posted by Fiddleback (# 2809) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
OK, that's the problem, at least for me. Fiddleback and Co, when you're not channelling Marjorie Dawes or thinking [Tom Baker voice]"Personally I think all fat people should be shot, lazy f***ers"[/Tom Baker voice]**, what should we do?
Keep less food in the house. Easy. You can't eat it if it isn't there. Don't do a weekly shop in Sainsburys or Tescos, but buy what you need every day locally. It might seem more expensive, but you will spend less in a week. The reason why places like Tescos are so successful is that they are so very good at getting people to buy far, far more than they need.
Posted by Telepath (# 3534) on
:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
quote:
French and Italians [aren't] lard-arses, so why am I?
Earlier in the same post by Matt Black:
quote:
the trouble is I eat too bloody much
I don't wish to be presumptuous, but I can see a connection here
At your next meal, try putting just a little less on your plate than you think will satisfy you.
Before your meal, turn off the TV (if it was on in the first place).
I know you would never start eating without waiting for everyone else at the table to be served, you paragon of decorum, you. Nevertheless, don't break this most excellent habit.
If you have a rest of the household, eat your meals with them wherever possible.
In between bites, put your knife and fork down.
If you're still hungry after you finish everything on your plate, stop and wait for a few minutes before taking another helping. You may find that you don't want it so much after all.
If you cease to be hungry before you finish everything on your plate, stop eating. Proxy eating on behalf of an impoverished country is a very inefficient form of aid.
Over time, your shopping lists and recipe sizes will adjust to fit your decreased appetite, so you'll have less of an issue with food wastage. And in any event, unwanted food is just as wasted if you use your body as a dustbin instead of the kitchen pedal bin.
Now, try your best not to eat anything until the next meal. If you're really really ravenous, to the extent that you are visualizing your coworkers on platters with apples in their mouths, eat a little snack. Something lovely, like a group of grapes, a handful of walnuts, and a nibble of blue cheese. Or some almonds would be nice. Or, how about one square of 70% proof chocolate? Mmmmm.
If you're not really really ravenous, just go with the feeling of hunger. You will really enjoy your next meal.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
I suppose I should qualify the 'eat too much' bit: it's only really in the context of when Mrs Black leaves something on her plate (particularly if I've prepared the meal), I have this insatiable urge to finish off what she's left rather than throw it away and 'waste' it. However, I accept your point about my body being as much of a dustbin as the real thing; never really thought about it in that way, so that point may well be helpful...
[ 10. July 2006, 09:55: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Sine Nomine:
I can certainly buy an uncooked chicken and roast it at home cheaper than I can buy an already roasted chicken at the grocery store.
That is certainly true, I expect. And a nice chicken can do you for 3 or 4 healthy meals, plus you can make soup with the leftovers if you know how.
But of course the upfront price isn't the only thing that may make it difficult or expensive. A lot of less well off people (here at least) live in places where there's little access to fresh ingredients. The local shop in a sink estate is unlikely to stock fresh chickens, or nice veg. And getting to shops with a better range of products can be an expensive business. And people may not have the facilities to roast a chicken. I've certainly lived in places where there was no oven adequate for a chicken, or where I was too scared of the other inhabitants to spend much time in the shared kitchen.
Plus it's not just expense. Remember the Jamie Oliver school dinners project (did that show outside the UK at all?) where he was dealing with children who couldn't name basic vegetables because they'd never seen them. When he first gave the children slices of tasty roast chicken they spat it out in disgust - they were horrified by the texture and the bland taste, and revolted that it had come off a chicken carcass. The only chicken they'd ever had was chopped, reformed, breaded and packed with salt, sugar and additives, that's what their tastes were trained to like. It takes serious work to change conditoning like that. Like Firenze says, schools can only do so much, you learn to cook and how to eat in the kitchen at home.
Plus, there was an interesting expose of the food trade I saw some time ago. One of the things they did was analyse the actual content of various grades of chicken. It turned out that a cheap fresh chicken - the factory farmed kind - was far from a healthy or low fat food. Because of farming methods, the lack of activity, never going outdoors, the diet and the hormones the meat itself was poor quality, almost free of nutritional value and very, very fatty. On top of that the manufacturers inject the carcass after slaughter with a mixture of (I think) water and vegetable oils to bulk up the weight and try to disguise the poor quality. The analysis showed that the cheapest chickens contained more fat than traditionally high-fat meats.
So assuming you've managed to learn to cook, managed to get to a decent shop, can get access to the facilities to cook properly and can get your brat kids to eat proper food (none of which, addmittedly, is impossible, just difficult), if you buy the only chicken you can afford it's quite likely what you're feeding your kids is still no better for them than a Turkey Twizzler would have been!
Nobody is suggesting that its impossible for the poor to eat and cook sensibly, lots already do. But there are extra difficulties and it always irritates me when people who don't face those difficulties deride those who do for not overcoming them.
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
The local shop in sink estate is likely to sell white bread, tins of baked beans, chocolate, pasties, cheese, pizza, crisps, jam and, um, not much else at all.....
Posted by I_am_not_Job (# 3634) on
:
I think I'm not the only one running out of energy to keep arguing about this. It's also been rather personal and non-purgatorial at times, some times more intentional than others. ISTM that being healthy in body, mind and spirit is 'a good thing'TM but members of the ship would disagree on the prominence and order and balance of these things and the degree of self determination involved in achieving them.
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
The local shop in sink estate is likely to sell white bread, tins of baked beans, chocolate, pasties, cheese, pizza, crisps, jam and, um, not much else at all.....
Exactly.
Which, if you live in Easterhouse, Drumchapel or Wester Hailes makes Fiddleback's 'buy what you need every day locally' pretty much identical to 'let them eat cake'. Except cake and heroin are probably a damn sight easier to get than free range, organic food.
I believe the local people in Easterhouse and some of the other Glasgow estates have actually done a lot of hard work setting up food co-ops to bring affordable fresh produce into their area, which is great, but only a start.
Posted by Emma. (# 3571) on
:
Im not keen on "ready meals" but i did notice tescos do 5 meals for 4 pounds from their healthy range.
You can also live on toast and cereal quite happily (i did when i was depressed) which is cheap and easy but not exactly a balanced diet.
Healthy food *does* take more time and effort and money to prepare than instant crap. I think its worth all those things but it is the initial time that goes into it - the planing to buy the right amount of veg so you dont waste them etc that comes with time. to begin with its a lot of time and energy **until** you know what yorue doing. Then I do agree - its as quick.
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fiddleback:
Don't do a weekly shop in Sainsburys or Tescos, but buy what you need every day locally.
It is always so interesting, is it not, to have a glimpse into exotic lifestyles?
Someone who has local, well-stocked shops and time, during the working day, to visit them. Time, even, to then adjourn to his home and dispose of his purchases - as opposed to, say, having to leave fresh meat, or fish, or milk, or yoghurt, or butter, or lettuce under a desk in a hot and busy office for 3 or 4 hours - preparatory to taking them on a crowded bus or train for perhaps a further hour. And it's not as if he has to carry a briefcase or a laptop at the same time, since he can single-thread domestic and work life.
Fascinating. But nothing like real life.
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
If you think, Fiddleback, that people on the dole can afford to shop at Sainsburies or Tescos then
Or even, for that matter, families with but a single (minimum) wage can afford to shop there.
You remind me of that 80's Tory MP who thought the dole was a life of luxury, and then agreed to try for a month, and then said publically that the dole was not enough to live on, and really that it was impossible to even survive on it for more than a very short time without getting into debt....
[ 10. July 2006, 10:33: Message edited by: Papio ]
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
...so quite what my excuse is (middle class, professional, car, wife working part-time, living in middle-class area with Tescos (x2 + Tescos Express), Sainsbury's (x2), Co-op supermarket all within 15 minutes' drive plusfresh fruit and veg store within 10 minutes walk, prepare own meals (no ready-meals here!) etc) I don't know...
[oh, and a butchers and another greengrocer w/in 5 minutes' drive/ 20 minutes' walk
]
[ 10. July 2006, 10:42: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Matt Black:
...so quite what my excuse is (middle class, professional, car, wife working part-time, living in middle-class area with Tescos (x2 + Tescos Express), Sainsbury's (x2), Co-op supermarket all within 15 minutes' drive plusfresh fruit and veg store within 10 minutes walk, prepare own meals (no ready-meals here!) etc) I don't know...
Yep. You, like me, have no excuse whatsoever. We're just very, very bad people.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Well, we do have it all handed to us on a plate, don't we.
(I'll get me coat.)
Posted by Cod (# 2643) on
:
Blimey, if there's anywhere cheaper in the UK than Tesco things have changed in the five years since I left.
If one can't make time to do one decent weekly shop, then I suppose one needs to prioritise one's time a bit better.
As for Drumchapel and the like, most people don't live in places like that (although I feel nothing but pity for those that do). Comparing the majority of people who have reasonably decent access to shops to the French aristocracy of the eighteenth century seems a bit much to me.
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
Blimey, if there's anywhere cheaper in the UK than Tesco things have changed in the five years since I left.
Nettos, Liddls, KwikSave, need i go on?
The trouble is that such stores do not sell a lot of fruit and veg, except in cans which have been pumped ful of sugar and/or salt and also loads of e-numbers.
Posted by Cosmo (# 117) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
If you think, Fiddleback, that people on the dole can afford to shop at Sainsburies or Tescos then
Or even, for that matter, families with but a single (minimum) wage can afford to shop there.
And yet, if those families on the dole or on low incomes round Cosmoville are to be regarded as in anyway normative (which is what the market research companies think), they seem to be able to afford to eat every meal from a take-away pizza place or the KFC or McDonalds or the Indian/Chinese takeaways or the remarkably expensive readymeals from the convienience stores.
It is much cheaper to buy decent food day by day
from a butcher, fishmonger and greengrocer, especially if one lives on one's own. And even if one lives in a town without these necessary places then it is still cheaper to buy from Tesco's or Sainsbury's than from convienience shops and takeaways.
People have to learn to buy food in sensible quantities, how to use all the food that they buy rather than throwing half of it away, to buy food that it in season which is cheaper and to find cheaper cuts of meat and fish which are still very tasty and nourishing.
Get an allotment and grow your own vegetables. Bake your own bread rather than eat bits of plastic. Never allow children to graze from the fridge or eat alone in their room. Yes, it takes time and it takes work. But to say that it's impossible to eat cheaply and well is just plain wrong.
Cosmo
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
Oh whatever, they are all loaded aren't they?
Posted by Cod (# 2643) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
Blimey, if there's anywhere cheaper in the UK than Tesco things have changed in the five years since I left.
Nettos, Liddls, KwikSave, need i go on?
The trouble is that such stores do not sell a lot of fruit and veg, except in cans which have been pumped ful of sugar and/or salt and also loads of e-numbers.
The Lidl I knew in Glasgow had plenty of fruit and veg. People still seemed to find the chippy handy though. You've got to be pretty loaded to live off fish suppers and Irn Bru / Tennants in my opinion.
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
What. Ever.
Posted by Pânts (# 999) on
:
As Cod said, having done both, its a damn site more expensive living off takeaways than buying 'real' food. Tesco's etc is plenty cheap enough.
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
As for Drumchapel and the like, most people don't live in places like that (although I feel nothing but pity for those that do).
Thank goodness. But those are the areas where obesity is rife, diets are generally not good, and life expectancy is actually falling. Presumably those fat people (quite possibly the fattest in the country) are included in the general derision, not just middle-class fat people who have easy access to organic farm shops.
quote:
Comparing the majority of people who have reasonably decent access to shops to the French aristocracy of the eighteenth century seems a bit much to me.
Yes, it would be. Who did it?
Posted by Amos (# 44) on
:
The real problem, IMO, is that amongst the poorer part of the white English working class or Lumpenproletariat we are now on the second or third generation that has never learned to cook. People are not born knowing what to do with raw ingredients. Cooking or Domestic Science has dropped off the National Curriculum (to be replaced by the useless 'Food Technology'), mothers and some grandmothers don't regularly buy fresh food and prepare it, children don't grow up seeing it being prepared, and so you can provide as many farmers' markets as you like, all piled high with fresh, cheap, local food: the people Papio and FB are referring to won't know what to do with it.
On the other hand, immigrants and the bourgeoisie will have a field day (and so will Firenze and I)
Posted by PeaceFeet (# 11001) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Amos:
the people Papio and FB are referring to won't know what to do with it.
My wife and I are a quite-low-but-not-the-lowest income family and I can't really cook well. Nevertheless my lunch today is fresh (mostly), healthy, filling and cheap. It is a salad of lettuce, tomato, cucumber, tasty chedder and tinned salmon in a box, and an apple for pud. If you buy stuff like that in a sensible quantity (so it doesn't spoil before you eat it), then you have a week of filling and tasty lunches for about 4 quid. It doesn't take that much imagination really. There's no clever dressing or arrangement, it is just thrown in together.
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
It also occurs to me that people who berate others for being fat tend to be people with extremely high metabolisms, and large amounts of self-righteousness.
Guilty! I suppose I can admit to being self-righteous, although I don't have a high metabolism. It may be worth pointing out that I'm 6'2" and weigh 14 stone with a deep love of mixed grills. I am perfectly happy with this salady kind of lunch and it keeps us in the black. If I am honest it gives me a moderate high of self-righteous smugness when I walk past the bloaters in designer trainers in KFC on my way to the car at the end of the day. An impulse I fight.
[ 10. July 2006, 11:21: Message edited by: PeaceFeet ]
Posted by PeaceFeet (# 11001) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by PeaceFeet:
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
It also occurs to me that people who berate others for being fat tend to be people with extremely high metabolisms, and large amounts of self-righteousness.
Guilty! I suppose I can admit to being self-righteous...
Another foolish post from me; I don't actually go around berating others for being fat. I fight the impulse to think like that.
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
You've got to be pretty loaded to live off fish suppers and Irn Bru / Tennants in my opinion.
And actually, just to be difficult, I don't think that's true. A fish supper is, what, £2.50, £3.00? And around here that buys you enough chips to sink a battleship, two people could quite easily share it for their dinner. And cheapo Xtra Strength lager is... well, I'll check when I walk along to the shop but it's certainly cheap.
If that was truly all you were eating and drinking (and there are one or two characters round here that might well be) it would be pretty economical. Until you died, obviously.
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
Cod - i apologise, but what Rat said.
Posted by Fiddleback (# 2809) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Papio:
If you think, Fiddleback, that people on the dole can afford to shop at Sainsburies or Tescos then
Hunh? I don't beieve Matt Black is on the dole.
Posted by Genie (# 3282) on
:
On our current diet regime, my husband and I are buying only fresh and unprocessed foods to cook with - most of which comes from the fruit and vegetable section. We don't buy organic, but we do go to Sainsburys, because generally the fruit and vegetables there are better quality than the ones you get at Tesco or Asda. We're spending about £10 - £12 per day for two people. This is fine for us because we're relatively financially secure. But a low income family would struggle badly at this kind of expense. Six months ago we had money troubles, and even though we tried our best, it was difficult to eat enough fruit and vegetables on a limited budget. We weren't buying any ready-meals ackeaged stuff at all. However our diet consisted mostly of starches like pasta and rice, which are cheap and filling. Not very nutritious though. And the cheap cuts or meat are the fatty ones. I wouldn't call myself a good cook, but I know my way around a kitchen and I can prepare most meals from scratch. And even though we were intentionally trying to eat a healthy diet, somehow the finances never seemed to quite allow it.
Posted by CrookedCucumber (# 10792) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Genie:
And the cheap cuts or meat are the fatty ones.
There's a simple solution to that problem -- don't eat meat.
Posted by Nonpropheteer (# 5053) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by CrookedCucumber:
quote:
Originally posted by Genie:
And the cheap cuts or meat are the fatty ones.
There's a simple solution to that problem -- don't eat meat.
That is the worst advice I've ever heard. Meat is an absolutely vital ingredient in any diet.
Well, that's my story and I'm, sticking to it.
Posted by Genie (# 3282) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by CrookedCucumber:
quote:
Originally posted by Genie:
And the cheap cuts or meat are the fatty ones.
There's a simple solution to that problem -- don't eat meat.
Cheese is even more fatty, and the other half doesn't like nuts or tofu and thinks that chickpeas and lentils are for sissies. There's no much alternative if you're looking for protein.
Posted by CrookedCucumber (# 10792) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Genie:
Cheese is even more fatty, and the other half doesn't like nuts or tofu and thinks that chickpeas and lentils are for sissies. There's no much alternative if you're looking for protein.
If you want to eat meat ( or you partner does
) that's between you and your conscience. But to claim that there is no healthy alternative is simply incorrect.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
On the "not eating meat point", I have a somewhat cautionary tale, which ties in with the comment someone made on this thread about 100 years ago that the reason we like fat and sugar is that historically we only had access to them rarely: in the mid 80s when I was a teenager, mum decided we were all going to be vegetarian. As she was the only one in the house who cooked at that time she got her way. But yours truly couldn't quite give up his meat craving (and there was probably a sound biological reason for that as I was going through a growth spurt), which manifested itself in smuggling in packets of pork scratchings. The trouble is, ever since then and despite reverting to being an open carnivore a few years later, I still have something of an addiction for the horrible pig's toenails and, now I'm eating 'normal' meat ono a regular basis, they're just plain bad for me.
Posted by professor kirke (# 9037) on
:
Here's a thought...
What if some folks don't mind being overweight? What if being overweight is less of an evil than the skill, time, energy, planning, sacrifice it would take to become thin for some?
This argument started because Fiddleback claimed that laughter and mockery is a good way to get fat people to change. Sure, it's possible to eat well for cheap, especially if your lifestyle already easily accommodates such practices, and especially if you have a high metabolism and come from a family of thin people who all made great choices about their weight, etc. It's true, people who are 300 pounds and up can lose weight if they really put their minds to it.
My concern is what damn business is it of yours to tell anyone else how they should handle their weight? The arrogance of some of the attitudes on this thread sicken me. "Oh well I can find this food for cheap here and if you can't find the time to do this or that then you need to straighten your priorities." How the hell do you (the general you, of course) know what my priorities are?
No, people ridicule other people because it's self-serving. Fit people may not struggle with their weight, but they struggle in other areas. It's far easier to forget about those weak parts when they're having a good laugh at the "fatties" across the way. "Yeah, I may have problems, but at least I'm not fat."
No, maybe not fat, but incredibly ugly.
-Digory
Posted by Nonpropheteer (# 5053) on
:
I'm overweight and don't mind it all. Sometimes I get more overweight (thanks to xmas and t-day)than I want to be and work to lose a pant size or two, but I find it rahter easy to maintain my current weight - which is more than doctors would say is healthy, I imagine. But I'm not self-conscious about it and until some NASA scientists complain that I am throwing off the orbital path of the Earth, I think I'll continue to happily fill my 44/46s.
Posted by duchess (# 2764) on
:
It is my opinion that nobody should smoke. Smoking kills and is unproductive. It stinks and colors teeth a sick shade of yellow. I speak from past experience as an ex-smoker who smoked for over 13 years before I quit. If I can quit, obviously, people who can not quit choose not too out of sheer laziness. Smoking kills faster and in a more effective manner than being too fat. Studies show it causes more blockage faster which in turn causes heart attacks.
It is especially a bad example for a clergy person to smoke since they are encouraging their flock that this is ok, by example...of somebody who is too lazy to quit smoking, slowly killing themselves. Kind of selfish.
Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
If one can't make time to do one decent weekly shop, then I suppose one needs to prioritise one's time a bit better.
That may be true, but if you don't know what another person actually does with their time, it is presumptuous beyond words.
Not so many years ago, I was a single mom with four kids, including an infant. I had a full-time job. On a typical day, I got up at 5:30, got my shower, got the kids up at 6, got breakfast for them, fed the baby while they were eating, took school-aged kids to school, baby to daycare, went to work. Nine hours later, I picked baby up from daycare, then picked school-aged kids up from their after-school care. We left the house at 7 a.m., got home at 6:30. Dinner, baths, and bedtime rituals for the three odler kids had to be complete by 8:30, and I had a baby to care for as well. After kids were in bed, I had to do dishes and laundry, fix bottles and baby food for the next day, and do whatever else had to be done.
I did find a way to buy and prepare healthy food for us (including preparing baby food from scratch). But in amongst all that other stuff, I did not sit down and go over my kids' homework with them. The after-school program they went to had a homework room, and the kids were supposed to do their homework there. If they didn't, it didn't get done.
And for Eldest Son, it often didn't get done. When I had a meeting with the school staff to talk about the difficulties he was having at school, the guidance counselor said I should be going over his homework with him every night, making sure it was properly completed, that he had followed the teachers' instructions to the letter, etc., etc. I told her I couldn't do that, that there was simply not time in the evenings to do it. She looked at me condescendingly and told me I needed to get my priorities in order.
As far as I was concerned, my priorities were in order. There was only so much time in a day, and keeping my kids clean, well fed, and well rested were more important to me than going over their homework. There really wasn't time for everything. And if, for example, I also had to look after an elderly relative -- then something would have had to give up something else -- something else that was indeed important, but not as important as the other things. Cooking from scratch probably would have been it.
It's quite true that someone else might have prioritized things in a different way -- they might have thought it was more important to check a child's homework than to get the child to bed on time. Someone else might decide that helping their children with their homework is more important than doing a weekly shopping trip and preparing meals from scratch. Buying fast-food burgers on the way home would likely have freed up enough time to have allowed me to do that. But I thought decent family dinners were more important. Maybe I was right, maybe not.
But the guidance counselor was wrong to think she could set my priorities for me. And you are wrong to think you can set priorities for other people as well.
Maybe some people can't fit in a decent weekly shop because they're lazy, or spend too much time watching TV or messing around online or out with their friends. But others honestly have more important things to do.
Posted by OliviaG (# 9881) on
:
Thank you, Josephine.
OliviaG
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by OliviaG:
Thank you, Josephine.
OliviaG
ditto
Posted by Duck (# 10181) on
:
[X-posted - reply to Genie]
Vegan food for one costs me around £15 a week, maybe £20 with treats like fair-trade choc & or fair-trade dried mango - & that's with mostly organic fruit & veg, as much fair-trade stuff as i can conveniently buy locally (mostly dried fruit for snacks) & not being totally obsessive about cheap everything - if i'm really paying attention to cost then £10/week isn't too difficult.
I mostly buy from a local vegbox delivery scheme, the local Co-op corner shop, spices & dried beans & nuts from Asian-owned grocery shop (very useful for cheap staples), and maybe once a month trip to large supermarket (bringing home what i can carry on a bicycle), and the odd trip to the veggie 'wholefood' shop on the other side of town for hard-to-find stuff. This isn't a 'boring uber-healthy' diet either - i need some energy-dense food like crisps & sweets to keep calorie intake up during hard training.
Without buying expensive animal protein i can afford a wide range of veggies & carbs & still have an inexpensive, nutritionally-balanced diet. If a vegan diet is nutritionally inadequate for you, you'd better be able to convince me you have a solid medical condition that makes it so, 'cos it keeps me going on some intense training and there's plenty of world-class vegan athletes around. If you just don't like eating beans, i'll reluctantly concede that that's your choice - but please don't try to claim that meat's anything but an unnecessary luxury.
[ 10. July 2006, 18:41: Message edited by: Duck ]
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by duchess:
It is especially a bad example for a clergy person to smoke since they are encouraging their flock that this is ok, by example...of somebody who is too lazy to quit smoking, slowly killing themselves. Kind of selfish.
I understand that the Pope smokes.
And Thomas Aquinas was very fat.
Posted by duchess (# 2764) on
:
Hatless, I am at a loss how smokers are any less lazy than those who engage in eating junkfood (which is part of my point in my previous post) which seems to be believed by some posting in this thread (but maybe I am wrong about that???). And smoking was not known to be a health hazard way back when back when.
I am wondering where you read that the current pope smokes. Does he really?
[edited to make a little more clear in context.]
[ 10. July 2006, 18:56: Message edited by: duchess ]
Posted by duchess (# 2764) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
quote:
Originally posted by duchess:
It is especially a bad example for a clergy person to smoke since they are encouraging their flock that this is ok, by example...of somebody who is too lazy to quit smoking, slowly killing themselves. Kind of selfish.
I understand that the Pope smokes.
And Thomas Aquinas was very fat.
I think it my point was lost here. I am not the one who thinks it is ok to make fun of people for being fat. On the contrary, I think it is very cruel and my post was to make some stop and think in their tracks.
I give up right now. I just can't make people see how being mindlessly cruel is ungodly, hurtful and unhelpful.
Forced conversions are never useful.
Posted by Duck (# 10181) on
:
Another point of view:
One of the more crap things about running (especially if you're female, but it happens to blokes too), is that people will laugh at you in the street. Small children will think it's incredibly original & witty to shout '118! 118!' or 'Run, Forrest, Run!'. Older children and adults seem to feel quite free to pass judgement on your weight, speed, bra size, or indeed any other comments.
If you are female, you'll probably recieve unwanted & threatening male attention, probably also physical contact - i've had a knife pulled on me once, running at 6am through a 'safe' part of town.
Even those who don't actually threaten you are likely to be unimpressed - my grandfather seems to regard my running in public wearing baggy shorts & t-shirt as roughly equivalent to performing a sexual act with a chicken in the public park.
Non-exercisers will feel threatened by you, regardless of your own behaviour. You might be told you are 'skinny', even if you wouldn't dream of commenting on, or particularly care about, other people's body shape. Maybe you'll be called a 'jock', or it'll be otherwise implied that your hobby means you are intellectually inferior to someone who spends their time in more sedentary pursuits (there's a lot to be science-geeky about in running, and it does give you uninterrupted thinking time).
Please don't get me started on bl00dy dog-walkers.
If you're a cyclist, it's quite easy to decide that everyone is actually out to kill you.
So, in the face of all this opposition from other people to you just doing what you enjoy without harming anyone else, naturally you might get a little defensive. Hopefully, you'll just talk up the positive benefits of your hobby, in much the same way as a LARPer might tell you how much fun it is to dress up in funny costumes and hit other people with rubber swords - it's a social activity that gets you out in the fresh air, you'll feel a lot better for it! But it's very easy for talking up what you love to turn into dismissing people who 'don't get it' - particularly when the rest of the world seems to be actively hostile to your favourite activity.
Sad, but classic social psychology - define an 'in-group' and an 'out-group', and one way or the other conflict will probably turn up - and it's usually easier to pick out keen runners in a crowd than keen LARPers, or sci-fi geeks, or knitters, because one side-effect of running is that it changes your body shape. Doesn't make it much different from any other hobby, an obvious badge of identity.
Posted by Nonpropheteer (# 5053) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Duck:
[X-posted - reply to Genie]
If a vegan diet is nutritionally inadequate for you, you'd better be able to convince me you have a solid medical condition that makes it so, 'cos it keeps me going on some intense training and there's plenty of world-class vegan athletes around.
I have never seen such a dietism*-filled statement in my life. You know the Nazi's were all vegetarian, right?
Eh, Ok - I made the whole nazi-thing up. the word dietism wouldn't stand up under scrutiny either.
Your diet might be right for you, but that doesn't make it right for each and every person.
An appropriate article I suppose. quote:
Evidence from a few large cohort studies suggests that vegetarians have lower overall mortality ratios than the general population, but this is not the case when vegetarians are compared with similar non-vegetarian groups who follow a health-conscious lifestyle.
Following a vegetarian diet does not automatically equate to being healthier; vegetarians and meat-eaters alike need to be mindful of making appropriate dietary and lifestyle choices.
(emphasis mine)
*Dietism: n; 1 : a belief that diet is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that nutritional differences produce an inherent superiority in a particular dieter.
2 : deital prejudice or discrimination
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
Yes, I thought you were being sarcastic, duchess. I was told the Pope smokes by a Baptist theologian!
This is an utterly fascinating thread because of the bizarre attitudes that people are demonstrating. Quite a lot of posters clearly despise fat people, which astonishes me. You don't have to change the subjects in the thread title too much to get from the fat and broke to the sick and the poor, who are the people Jesus squandered so much sympathy on. More fool him. He should have realised they were undeserving contemptible fools who needed to be mocked and perhaps given a little no nonsense advice about budgetting and healthy living.
I still want to ask how it is that though people may choose to eat to excess, that does not mean they choose to be fat. No one wants to be fat, but many people are simply not in control of themselves to even the extent of being able to regulate eating.
I understand that smokers who have lost a leg, had a heart attack, or surgery for lung cancer, almost always give up smoking. The incentive is so strong. But, a year later, fifty per cent of them are smoking again!!
We are not in control of ourselves in the simple, rational way so many people think. For some it's smoking or food, but most of us have our own faults, bits of life we can't get to grips with, negative behaviours we helplessly repeat.
Perhaps we should speak in terms of sin. Being fat is a sin, and those who are without sin are the only ones in a position to laugh.
Posted by Duck (# 10181) on
:
Nonpropheteer - i make no claims for the nutritional superiority of a vegan over a ovo-lacto-vegetarian or omnivourous diet, merely that being vegan is not nutritionally inferior for the average healthy adult. i'd suspect that any reasonably well-thought-out diet would be roughly equivalent nutritionally regardless of the meat content - maybe there'll be some slight difference in rates of bowel cancer or homocysteine levels but nothing as significant as the difference between living on [veggie]burgers & chips, or eating mostly home-cooked food planned with some thought - regardless of whether you're eating animals or not.
I did also recognise that some people may have medical issues which make a plant-based diet difficult or impossible - for example a friend had a condition which made him very ill if he ate too much fibre.
I also fully recognise that people may choose to enjoy unnecessary luxuries if they can - i don't need my dark choc, it's expensive, but as long as i can afford it i'll keep eating it 'cos i enjoy it. but for me to complain that i couldn't afford a healthy diet because i needed rather than wanted to spend my money on Maya Gold would be untrue.
It is unarguable that at least in the UK then a diet based mostly on plant protein is likely to be significantly cheaper than one based mostly on animal protein. If you don't believe me, find your nearest supermarket & compare the price of a piece of meat with a tin of beans.
A worked example for you:
From the Sainsbury's website:
Sainsbury's Chicken Skinless Breast Fillets x4 520g £5.99/
whereas tins of various beans are 3 for £1.
To make a meal for 4, I'd use 2, maybe 3 tins of beans, or presumably the packet of 4 bits of chicken. I haven't done the sums but i'm guessing that nutritionally, a stir-fry made with mixed beans v. skinless chicken is going to be roughly equivalent - low fat, and the mixed beans should provide all essential amino acids.
There's a £5 (one-third of my entire weekly food budget) difference between the cost of the two meals - so if cost is the limiting factor in your ability to eat healthily, then clearly plant-based food is going to be a significantly better option.
For most people in the UK, meat is an unnecessary luxury, and if you are finding eating healthily to be too expensive, replacing at least some animal with plant protein is likely to decrease the overall cost of a nutritious diet.
If you can afford animal protein, fine - that's a different argument. If you aren't that bothered about the nuritional quality of your diet & would prefer to eat steak (or the vegan eqivalent of dark choc) and be unable to afford fruit & veg - fine, again that's a different argument, and one which i'm inclined to accept.
But if you do want to both eat healthily, and limit the overall cost, then plant protein is usually the better option.
Posted by Littlelady (# 9616) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Being fat is a sin, and those who are without sin are the only ones in a position to laugh.
I'm confused. Why is being fat a sin? I thought gluttony was the food-related sin? And isn't gluttony a love for food over and above a love for God? Maybe I am mistaken ...
Posted by xSx (# 7210) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
This is an utterly fascinating thread because of the bizarre attitudes that people are demonstrating. Quite a lot of posters clearly despise fat people, which astonishes me.
People's attitudes towards fat people are really interesting. I have a friend who struggled with anorexia in her teens and now is very careful to eat healthily/go to the gym every day, etc. She isn't obsessive about it, but it startles me how judgemental she is about 'fat' or 'overweight' people, both in real life and (e.g.) on the TV. People I think look fairly normal 'shouldn't be allowed on TV', according to her. To give a practical example - those Dove adverts. featuring 'regular women' (none of whom are overweight to my eye) revolt her.
She wouldn't dream of talking or thinking like about other sorts of people. I've noticed similar views in others of my mind.
I wonder if part of the problem with 'fat' people is a) society's ideas of what constitutes fat have reached idiotic levels (if I watch films from 20/30 years ago, I'm realise quite how thin movie stars are now) and b) for many, there is something 'ugly' about fat people that there is not about others who endanger their health through their own choice (allowing for a moment, that ppl have responsibility for how fat they are).
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on
:
We are subjected to a lot of 'healthy' advice. The effect is not so much on behaviour, but on subconscious attitude - like having a horror of sin (well, of sins you don't think you commit).
As I have said, I am thoroughly self-indulgent when it comes to food and drink. But a little while ago I was sitting in a pub in Vienna and two Viennese men where doing as Viennese do - chain smoking, drinking glass after glass of beer, and eating large amounts of salty, fatty food. And I felt genuinely scandalized.
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Littlelady:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Being fat is a sin, and those who are without sin are the only ones in a position to laugh.
I'm confused. Why is being fat a sin? I thought gluttony was the food-related sin? And isn't gluttony a love for food over and above a love for God? Maybe I am mistaken ...
I wouldn't say being fat is a sin. I know I did, but that was after I wrote 'Perhaps we should speak in terms of sin.' I then gave an example of speaking in terms of sin: we might say that 'Being fat is a sin.'
The point is that if being fat is a sin, which seems a rather harsh view, nonetheless there is a solidarity in it. We are all sinners. We can't laugh at each other for our sin. To call being fat a sin would actually be to downgrade it - just a sin, just like everyone has. The views of many on this thread is that being fat is worse than a sin: it is a scandal, something that forfeits the requirement that the rest of us should make the effort to understand or show compassion. People seem to be saying that fat people are bad in a way that they are not.
Posted by muchafraid (# 10738) on
:
Originally posted by hatless:
quote:
To call being fat a sin would actually be to downgrade it - just a sin, just like everyone has. The views of many on this thread is that being fat is worse than a sin: it is a scandal, something that forfeits the requirement that the rest of us should make the effort to understand or show compassion. People seem to be saying that fat people are bad in a way that they are not.
If what you're saying is "By simply calling fatness a sin wouldn't be enough for these people. They have to make it sound like something WORSE than a sin to justify their cruelty," then I completely follow you and agree.
If that's not what you're saying, I'm afraid I'm totally lost.
I think that's really funny and interesting. "Well, if you were just SINNING like I do every second of every day, then I guess I could tolerate your fatness. But since you've gone BEYOND sin and into the realms of something much deeper, darker, and disgusting, God smiles down at my lack of mercy and applauds my jabs. I'll be rewarded for them someday!"
Please.
Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Duck:
Non-exercisers will feel threatened by you, regardless of your own behaviour.
Dream on.
Posted by Duo Seraphim (# 256) on
:
I maintain that it is possible to discuss the attitudes of society towards fat people and towards diet without the following:
whether Fiddleback is setting a bad example by smoking, comments about "dietism" (dreadful neologism and a near Godwin's Law reference too) and any post involving multiple use of
.
All of this is getting inappropriately personal.
If you want that kind of fight then take it to Hell, please.
Duo Seraphim, Purgatory Host
Posted by Golden Key (# 1468) on
:
Duo,
May I ask you, then, in your capacity as host, to also rule on the vile and numerous comments by Fiddleback and others about "fatties", "slobs', etc.? That's what provoked the comparison to smoking.
Thanks!
Posted by A.F. Steve (# 9057) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Duck:
[X-posted - reply to Genie]
Vegan food for one costs me around £15 a week, maybe £20 with treats like fair-trade choc & or fair-trade dried mango - & that's with mostly organic fruit & veg, as much fair-trade stuff as i can conveniently buy locally (mostly dried fruit for snacks) & not being totally obsessive about cheap everything - if i'm really paying attention to cost then £10/week isn't too difficult.
I mostly buy from a local vegbox delivery scheme, the local Co-op corner shop, spices & dried beans & nuts from Asian-owned grocery shop (very useful for cheap staples), and maybe once a month trip to large supermarket (bringing home what i can carry on a bicycle), and the odd trip to the veggie 'wholefood' shop on the other side of town for hard-to-find stuff. This isn't a 'boring uber-healthy' diet either - i need some energy-dense food like crisps & sweets to keep calorie intake up during hard training.
Without buying expensive animal protein i can afford a wide range of veggies & carbs & still have an inexpensive, nutritionally-balanced diet. If a vegan diet is nutritionally inadequate for you, you'd better be able to convince me you have a solid medical condition that makes it so, 'cos it keeps me going on some intense training and there's plenty of world-class vegan athletes around. If you just don't like eating beans, i'll reluctantly concede that that's your choice - but please don't try to claim that meat's anything but an unnecessary luxury.
Expensive animal protien? Meat, particularly ground beef, seems to be one of the cheapest ways to eat on a tight budget. We ate a LOT of ground beef when my wife and I had just gotten married. $1.29/lb for beef here. That's next to nothing for enough meat to serve 4 in most casseroles, burgers, spaghetti, etc.
Luxury? I don't think that ground beef or chicken breasts are much in the way of luxuries, especially considering the outrageous cash that folks blow on organic junk in stores.
Posted by migo (# 11635) on
:
quote:
My concern is what damn business is it of yours to tell anyone else how they should handle their weight?
If I'm paying taxes that pay for the medical bills they incurr due to their obesity, it damn well is my business. They're using up doctors, of which there is already a shortage, which could spend their time dealing with patients who have problems for which there isn't an easy a solution as eating well. In countries that don't have universal health care, they're still eating an unnecessary amount of extra food that could very easily go to countries with famine if they weren't eating it. There are moral issues in chosing to be fat and not caring about the consequences to other people. (This of course doesn't apply to those who are trying to either lose weight or ensuring they are healthy despite being over average weight, have more pressing immediate concerns, etc.)
[ 11. July 2006, 07:58: Message edited by: migo ]
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
:
Duchess - you rock. Josephine - you rock too. That's what we like - some rocking chicks.
And if anyone else tells me I have my priorities wrong, I will kill them. With my bare hands. No, I don't have my priorities wrong, I just happen to have different ones from you. They are thought out, considered and chosen. You may have chosen and considered differently, but that doesn't make my choices wrong. I am sure that God has told you what is important for you, and I am damn sure he hasn't told you what is important for me.
And it strikes me that fatness/thinness is also a cultural thing. In some parts of the world, being fat is considered a sign of prosperity. Is it not true that our obsession with people being "normally thin" is really just western culture talling us how we should look?
Posted by Fiddleback (# 2809) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
And if anyone else tells me I have my priorities wrong, I will kill them. With my bare hands.
Or you will just sit on them.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
SC, you rock too!
More anecdotal 'evidence' follows:
Personally I don't find 'healthy cooking and eating' a problem (like I said, it's quantity not quality that's my downfall), at least not since I got divorced from the first Mrs B. Before that, she did all the cooking; before that I was a student and my idea of healthy cooking was either ready meals or some fried mushrooms as 'veg'.
When the first Mrs B left me, I realised I had to learn how to cook and I figured if I was going to have to do it I might as well learn to do it well, so bought a heap of recipe books focussing largely on Mediterranean-style cooking and started cooking from scratch with extra-virgin olive oil, pasta/rice and largely fresh ingredients, all bought in my weekly Sainsbury's shop. I discovered that the resulting meals were comparable in price to the ready-meals and also rarely took more than half an hour to prepare, which suited me as I was out socialising most evenings and didn't have time to waste on cooking.
So I guess it can be done provided you have the right education/info (recipe books in my case) and the right motivation to prioritise it (in my case, a failed marriage and the consequent desire to be 'good' at something). But we are all different and I wouldn't seek to impose my 'eating lifestyle' on anyone else nor censure them for theirs.
Posted by Fiddleback (# 2809) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
And it strikes me that fatness/thinness is also a cultural thing. In some parts of the world, being fat is considered a sign of prosperity.
It is in parts of the world where food is scarce. Obviously. In parts of the world where food is abundant it is a sign of greed or stupidity.
Listen up again, horizontally challenged people. You eat too much. That is because you have too much to eat. If you can't stop eating food, don't buy it. Spend your money on something else like going to the ballet, and then you won't have anything left to spend on food.
Posted by Duck (# 10181) on
:
AF Steve - my original post was in response to Genie's saying that cheap cuts of meat tended to be high in fat.
The Food Standards Agency suggests minced beef to contain 10-25% fat, and found up to 32% fat in a survey. That's a lot more than beans, and beef contains mainly saturated fats.
In your part of the world, then minced beef might be an inexpensive, nutritious part of a healthy diet - but plant protein also tends to be nutritious, inexpensive, and a sensible suggestion for people looking to reduce the overall cost of their weekly shop.
I agree that organic fruit & veg are an unnecessary luxury, particularly if you buy the overpriced, overpacked, high-transport-miles stuff in most supermarkets.
Originally posted by Mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Duck:
Non-exercisers will feel threatened by you, regardless of your own behaviour. quote:
Dream on.
To quote Papio:
quote:
Sport = ritual humiliation, getting jeered at by stupid jocks who couldn't pass a proper exam if their lives depended on it, feeling as though you have the worlds worst hangover, getting called a poofter and being beaten up in the shower room. Sweating a lot.
The Gym = largely the same as above, but you pay an obscene amount of money for the privelledge.
Or this, originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
quote:Originally posted by I_am_not_Job:
Newman's Own - you are most welcome to come down to my local running club track and see all the kids there from the local sink estate who are learning self confidence,
Whoa. I only ever learnt how shit I was at anything physical down on the running track? Self confidence? It shattered what I had.
quote:teamwork
Yes, I'll grant you that. One kid would hold me down in the showers whilst the other kicked my head in.
quote:friendship
Yes indeed; knocking the "weeds" around is so friendly.
quote:a healthy lifestyle
I'm not sure that our national sports obsession is healthy, not socially or mentally, at any rate.
I would never comment unfavourably on someone else's physical appearance, much less hurt anyone just 'cos they aren't good at sport. Having been the overweight clumsy child who got beaten up at school for being crap at sports, and still being dyspraxic, i know how much it hurts. I've already said that i don't think my hobby of running is in any way superior to sci-fi, chess, pub quizzes, or much else you might care to mention.
But just because i enjoy running, & am the sort of shape that tends to go along with that, some people don't seem to have a problem with calling me 'skinny', a 'jock', lumping me in with anyone who bullied them at school, or trotting out all the usual anti-intellectual stereotypes.
All i actually want is to get on with my hobby in peace, and let other people do the same, without anyone hassling me about it - but unfortunately too many non-sporting people seem to assume i'm going to judge them, and get their retaliation in first.
Posted by The Great Gumby (# 10989) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
We are subjected to a lot of 'healthy' advice. The effect is not so much on behaviour, but on subconscious attitude - like having a horror of sin (well, of sins you don't think you commit).
I think this is it. The secondary issue (in the UK, at least) is the government's moaning about the terrible pressure on the NHS. A few tabloid stories about people who keep getting treated for this and that and the other, but keep smoking 40 a day, or drinking like a fish, or stuffing their face with junk food, and you start telling yourself that it's all because of them that you've been waiting so long for that operation. Suddenly, fat people aren't just hideous lardbuckets, they're stealing your taxes with their selfish gluttony! You've not just got a right to mock and criticise, it's practically your duty! Save the NHS - beat up a fatty today!
Of course, even if they were being deliberately unhealthy, just to spite you, the sums involved are a fraction of a drop in the ocean for the NHS, and there are plenty of other activities that are far more likely to seriously drain public funds, but fat people are soooo easy to identify.
It doesn't make any sense, but it's just too easy for some people to blame everything on "them".
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by migo:
If I'm paying taxes that pay for the medical bills they incurr due to their obesity, it damn well is my business.
The logic there, Migo, would seem to be to move towards a rationing of healthcare where the condition can be proven to be the result of choice on the part of the patient.
A good deal of the discussion on this thread has been about what constitutes 'choice': some saying Yes, you can choose to eat healthy, home-cooked food and/or exercise sufficiently to those pointing out that economically and socially such choices may be a lot more difficult for some that others.
So, firstly, you would have to establish that the condition related directly to choices by the patient (and wasn't, for example, a metabolic disorder), and that they could have done otherwise whatever their social or personal situation.
And then, of course, why stop at food? What about the droves turning up in casualty with injuries from drinking too much on a Saturday night? Never mind the ones who got into a car while intoxicated. And the smokers, of course. And those who engage in sports and injure themselves that way. And then the sufferers from RSI - did they have to take a job which involved continuous computer use? Couldn't they have done something else?
In other words, auditing everyone's life to see how much their present situation is their own fault, is likely to intrusive and highly judgmental - and to what end? Is it not easier to say that the NHS should be like the grace of God, available to all?
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
TGG and Firenze are right, Migo. My brother-in-law isn't fat, he's fit, as in sporty fit. He does a lot of sport, some of it extreme, which has landed him in hospital with various broken body parts on at least one occasion. Should he get beaten up or made fun of because his lifestyle from time to time results in him 'bed-blocking' on the NHS? No; you see he doesn't get mocked and sneered at because the general public don't know about his medical treatment; fat people on the other hand do because certain members of the public assume that they are 'wasting' valuable NHS resources.
[Changed 'bits' to 'body parts' because 'bits' sounds rude. Sad, aren't I?]
[ 11. July 2006, 10:38: Message edited by: Matt Black ]
Posted by Duo Seraphim (# 256) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Duo,
May I ask you, then, in your capacity as host, to also rule on the vile and numerous comments by Fiddleback and others about "fatties", "slobs', etc.? That's what provoked the comparison to smoking.
Thanks!
As I see it, Golden Key, you have three choices:
- Take it to the Styx
- Take it to Hell; or
- Shrug the "fattie" comments off, with an air of insouciance.
Duo Seraphim, Purgatory Host
[ 11. July 2006, 11:10: Message edited by: Duo Seraphim ]
Posted by Astro (# 84) on
:
I thought of this thread when I read this in the guardian today
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Very interesting article. Thought-provoking.
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Duck:
But just because i enjoy running, & am the sort of shape that tends to go along with that, some people don't seem to have a problem with calling me 'skinny', a 'jock', lumping me in with anyone who bullied them at school, or trotting out all the usual anti-intellectual stereotypes.
All i actually want is to get on with my hobby in peace, and let other people do the same, without anyone hassling me about it - but unfortunately too many non-sporting people seem to assume i'm going to judge them, and get their retaliation in first.
It's a testament to my conditioning that I simply can't hear skinny as anything but a compliment! However, you are right of course, you should be able to be who you are without being subject to unfair assumptions. As should we all.
migo: The issue of health is a red herring I'm sure. Firenze, Gumby and Matt have said what I'd have wanted to. In addition I think our perception of overweight has become so skewed that it no longer bears any relation to health. To be anecdotal, I'm 37 and a UK size 14 on the bottom, 16 on top - that is well within the range of normal. No doctor has ever raised my weight as a problem, the only time it was mentioned was to warn me against the very low calorie diet I was following at the time. Yet shop assistants regularly feel entitled to be rude to me because of my 'outsize' shape, and when I go out on my bike it is a regular occurence for someone to comment out loud on the size of my arse, call me a fat c*nt, or otherwise subject me to abuse.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with concern about taxes (or if it does these people have a very unrealistic view of what level of overweight is likely to trouble the NHS)!
Posted by Telepath (# 3534) on
:
People basically want to be flattered.
We all struggle with things - we all sin, if you will.
Fat people (appear to) embody this struggle with sin.
Therefore, fat people make great scapegoats.
Thinner people feel flattered when standing next to a fat person.
If a fat person gets thinner, or a klutz gets good at sports, or you get good at something that you previously received moral condemnation for being bad at...
That is not very flattering to others.
The people who were previously condemning you can't accuse you of the same thing. Worse, your newfound ability to do X may actually highlight the fact that your accusers haven't actually been doing X themselves - they've just been designating you as the non-X-doer of the group, and having a free ride on your supposed X-related delinquency. Now that you visibly are doing X, you're ruining their whole racket!
They'd better accuse you of being... uh... a self-righteous paragon! Yeah, that sounds good. A self-righteous paragon.
Never mind that you thought you'd please them with all your diligent X-doing.
Meanwhile, all the people who used to be your peer group look down on you too. You Uncle Tom! Obviously you only did it to make them look bad!
People accused you so that they could feel flattered. You changed your ways to gain your fair share of flattery. Now you're not flattering anybody!
OMG, there's nowhere to go!
Normally, at this point, I'd close with a subtle yet thought-provoking witticism that suggests that there's more to life than maximising my own opportunities to be flattered. But who am I kidding? It's not like I even believe that myself.
Posted by Nonpropheteer (# 5053) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Duo Seraphim:
quote:
Originally posted by Golden Key:
Duo,
May I ask you, then, in your capacity as host, to also rule on the vile and numerous comments by Fiddleback and others about "fatties", "slobs', etc.? That's what provoked the comparison to smoking.
Thanks!
As I see it, Golden Key, you have three choices:
- Take it to the Styx
- Take it to Hell; or
- Shrug the "fattie" comments off, with an air of insouciance.
Duo Seraphim, Purgatory Host
I make one tongue-in-cheek reference to "dietism", fiddleback makes a career of insulting people on this thread -with the kind of insults I haven't heard since grade school. Yet my 'dietism" is worth the invocation of Godwin, and your advice to people offended by him/it is "like it or lump it"??
Fiddleback must be a contributor to the organ fund also. How much does it cost to get the "immunity from the hosts" badge?
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
Er...matter for the Styx, NP?
Posted by Scot (# 2095) on
:
ADMIN MODE
Nonpropheteer, if you want some shore leave, just make another remark like that last one. Otherwise, a review of Commandment 6 is in order.
For everyone, if you don't like what someone posts here, you can debate the point with them, call them to Hell, or you can put on your big girl panties and ignore the person.
If you think the hosts are not handling the thread properly, you can PM a host, start a thread in the Styx, or (once again) you can pull up those big girl panties and get on with your life.
Duo has warned you all about getting overly personal. Keep on ignoring her and I'll be back with more than a warning.
Scot
Member Admin
Posted by Anonymous Lurker Person (# 11642) on
:
I have been lurking on SOF for quite some time, and I finally feel I need to register and say something in response to this particular thread, which really touched a nerve for me.
I am shocked how readily some people will judge others, without knowing what their story is and what is going on inside them.
I am fat. My BMI is 35.4, which is considered obese. The primary reason for this is that I have binge eating disorder. This disorder is probably more common than you think, because people are ashamed and do not talk about it.
For more information on binge eating disorder, see this page:
http://win.niddk.nih.gov/publications/binge.htm
Christopher Fairburn has also written some very good books on the subject.
Let me also tell you that what started it for me was dieting. I was on a diet and was highly successful, losing one third of my body weight. Then I started binge eating, eating large amounts of food during out-of-control episodes. Usually these were the precise foods I had been trying to avoid. The trigger for a binge was often breaking one of the rules I had set for myself, as people with binge eating disorder are usually characterized by black-and-white thinking. Then I started binge eating in response to negative emotions. After each binge I would try to be more strict with my eating in order not to gain any weight back. But eventually I couldn’t do it anymore, especially when I started to suffer from severe depression, and now I have gained back all the weight I lose and then some.
I was treated as an outpatient at a psychiatric hospital, but now I am starting to relapse a bit.
If you don’t know what it’s like, please don’t judge. I do not choose to be fat. Do you know what it’s like to hate your body every time you see it? Do you know what it’s like to have to buy your clothes in a special shop? Do you know what it’s like to have strangers make personal comments about your appearance? Do you know what it’s like to know that your chances of jobs or boyfriends are reduced? Do you know what it’s like to have people analyze the contents of your grocery cart, or to wonder why you’re eating what you’re eating? Do you know what it’s like to feel guilty over everything you eat? Do you really think I would choose this?
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
...and welcome to the Ship.
Posted by Duck (# 10181) on
:
Originally posted by Rat: quote:
It's a testament to my conditioning that I simply can't hear skinny as anything but a compliment! However, you are right of course, you should be able to be who you are without being subject to unfair assumptions. As should we all.
It's not so much that i mind exactly what people call me, more that they feel able to talk about what i look like. I don't think it's terribly polite to comment on someone's appearance, even as a compliment - if someone said 'you've got lovely skin', i'd be rather annoyed that they found this more interesting than my cake-baking skills / 10k time / recall of really bad children's jokes / anything else i do of mutual interest, rather than what i just happen to look like through genetics, chance, or an unimportant side-effect of another hobby. It's really rather unpleasant being the subject of jealousy. Going from being an overweight, sedentary teenager to a sports-enthusiast young adult hasn't actually changed who i am how i think, or how i see the world much - but it has changed how people see me, and frustratingly enough then my weight's still an issue, just usually for different people.
Posted by Duck (# 10181) on
:
sorry, X-post - but Anonymous Lurker Person,
, & welcome.
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
:
Anonymous Lurker Person,
Welcome aboard and that's a brave thoughtful first post which bodes well.
There is a lot of support around the Ship for people with just about any problem (see All Saints) and we aren't all horrid and judgemental, not all the time, but Purgatory is a pretty robust place. If people do get out of order then the Hosts and Admin's do step in but they aren't moderators so anything can and does get posted.
Hope you enjoy yourself here.
[edit: x-p]
[ 11. July 2006, 14:40: Message edited by: Sioni Sais ]
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Anonymous Lurker Person:
Do you really think I would choose this?
I very much doubt that anyone who actually thinks would would think that......
Welcome to the ship. That was one of the best first posts I have seen in a long time.
Posted by muchafraid (# 10738) on
:
Originally posted by Duck:
quote:
It's really rather unpleasant being the subject of jealousy. Going from being an overweight, sedentary teenager to a sports-enthusiast young adult hasn't actually changed who i am how i think, or how i see the world much - but it has changed how people see me, and frustratingly enough then my weight's still an issue, just usually for different people.
I could be terribly mistaken, and if so I'm sorry, but this seems like a rather arrogant thing to say. I'm sure that our new friend Anon (as well as myself) would argue that if you're not the subject of people's cruely you should consider yourself lucky. ESPECIALLY if you yourself had to deal with being overweight as a child.
Can't we just agree that people just shouldn't judge? Whether they're poking at your imperfections, or focusing on nothing BUT your perfections - they just shouldn't do it at all. I don't think we need to now start making comparisons of how being drowned in compliments about our physical appearance is equally as annoying.
Posted by Zorro (# 9156) on
:
Anonymous lurker person, you're spot on,
it seems there's now a hellthread devoted to Fiddleback people.
Posted by duchess (# 2764) on
:
I apologize Duo S. I am taking my remarks to hell now, the proper place for them. I should not have push the boundries in purg.
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by duchess:
I apologize Duo S. I am taking my remarks to hell now, the proper place for them. I should not have push the boundries in purg.
Me too. I can no longer debate this in a polite manner, so I am taking it to hell as well.
Sorry Duo.
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by muchafraid:
<big snip>
Can't we just agree that people just shouldn't judge?
'fraid not. The existence of the "plank and speck" tale in scripture shows that The Lord knows about this problem and while person A think they are better than person B they will judge and do so gratuitously.
IMHO it is the gratuitous nature of such judging that is the problem but judging compassionately with correction can be done. Sometimes. By some people. Not everyone. Not all the time and I haven't seen a whole shedfull of it hereabouts.
Posted by Telepath (# 3534) on
:
Hi, Anonymous Lurker Person! I'm glad you posted. Good to meet you!
Posted by Telepath (# 3534) on
:
Originally posted by muchafraid:
quote:
Originally posted by Duck:
quote:
It's really rather unpleasant being the subject of jealousy. Going from being an overweight, sedentary teenager to a sports-enthusiast young adult hasn't actually changed who i am how i think, or how i see the world much - but it has changed how people see me, and frustratingly enough then my weight's still an issue, just usually for different people.
I could be terribly mistaken, and if so I'm sorry, but this seems like a rather arrogant thing to say. I'm sure that our new friend Anon (as well as myself) would argue that if you're not the subject of people's cruely you should consider yourself lucky. ESPECIALLY if you yourself had to deal with being overweight as a child.
Can't we just agree that people just shouldn't judge? Whether they're poking at your imperfections, or focusing on nothing BUT your perfections - they just shouldn't do it at all. I don't think we need to now start making comparisons of how being drowned in compliments about our physical appearance is equally as annoying.
I don't see how snide comments about being too skinny are compliments. Such remarks express hostility. "I haaate you, you're so skiiinnny..." might not make someone feel bad about their weight, but it sure makes them feel bad about their relationship with the speaker.
If people shouldn't judge, then it should be just as reasonable for skinny people as for fat people to recognize hostile remarks for what they are: hostile.
[ 12. July 2006, 08:01: Message edited by: Callan ]
Posted by in the garden (# 11383) on
:
I am orally fixated.
(those sophomoric amongst you, fell free to snicker HERE)
When I was a lean musclular fire fighter I chewed my nails to the knuckles, and like so many of my fellow smoker eaters, I would light up as soon as I shed my turn out gear.
As a child I ate the tips off of matches, chewed the erasers off of pencils and chomped on the wood until the pencil was unrecognizable.
Without going into my rocky childhood of being starved, emotionally and literally, I would say it's a fair bet that most people are trying to fill holes within themselves.
I think the caveats in the bible against gluttony and other feel-goodies were designed to let people know that God should be the supreme "hole filler". Whatever works...
If these are any cultural anthropologists out there, perhaps I can get some backup here when I say that our "cravings", whatever form they take go WAY back before rolled cigarettes and credit cards and fast food restaurants.
Periods of deprivation ( stick your favorite need here) sometimes are followed by periods of indulgance (likewise your favorite fix).
I asked my stepson what he thought the root of all evil was and he said, quite wisely, "dissatisfaction".
I am no longer a hard body, I am softer and fuller. I have good credit, but when I feel bad or sad or lonely or pissed off, I still light up a cigarette or slowly savor a bowl of whipped potatoes and gravy.
I have a hole in myself that needs constant attention, and until I can find something else that will satisfy that need, I will go with what works.
This is the human condition in a world of panaceas................
Posted by Telepath (# 3534) on
:
Human arrogance can't bear to acknowledge that humans need to be comforted.
Posted by muchafraid (# 10738) on
:
I definitely didn't mean to make it seem like I was saying:
Remarks about fat people = cruel jabs
Remarks about skinny people = adorable compliments
I'm sorry if that's the way it came out. Duck was complaining about receiving even compliments about outward appearance. I was merely trying to point out that we can say "no one should be judged" regardless of whether they're skinny or fat, BUT that we shouldn't start comparing the annoyance of compliments to the annoyance of insults.
Posted by Anonymous Lurker Person (# 11642) on
:
Thank you for the kind welcomes!
My struggles with weight and food issues have taught me a lot about judging. When I was successfully dieting and losing weight, I started judging overweight people, thinking “If I could do it, so could they”, but then with the disorder I realized it was not that simple. When I realized how much I hated others judging me, I also came to realize how I was also guilty of judging on other issues. My own problems manifested themselves physically for all to see, but other people don’t know what’s really going on. Other people also may have problems that result in them being what appears to be financially irresponsible or whatever. Since I don’t know what’s really going on with people, I need to try to be compassionate. Maybe this happened to me so that I would learn this lesson. When I catch myself being judgmental about someone, I say a brief prayer for them instead.
My priorities have changed and it is no longer important for me to lose weight and live up to society’s ideal. It was trying to do that which screwed me up. Now I just want to eat meals and snacks like a normal person, without having food dominate my life. I spent so much time and effort worrying about food, adding up calories, reading dieting websites, poring over low-fat cookbooks, trying on clothes to see if there was any change in fit, meticulously planning what I was allowed to eat, investigating different diets and ways of eating, beating myself up over what I ate, trying to be stricter, trying desperately to overcome cravings for sweets, planning how to obtain certain foods for myself, stopping at several different stores so that I wouldn’t be seen buying all that junk at once, eating in secret, etc. I have even taken food from the garbage. All that was a big waste. I could have been focusing on something truly worthwhile. I wish to God I had never tried to lose weight in the first place. Now it’s not going to be a priority for me at all. I want my priorities to be things like my Christian walk, my relationships, my creative pursuits, etc.
Posted by muchafraid (# 10738) on
:
Originally posted by Anonymous Lurker rPeson:
Now it’s not going to be a priority for me at all. I want my priorities to be things like my Christian walk, my relationships, my creative pursuits, etc.
And God will reward you richly for putting Him first - way to go ALP!
Posted by duchess (# 2764) on
:
ALP, wonderful fresh posts from a newbie! You tackled it, hook line and sinker!
Delighting in Our LORD Jesus Christ should come FIRST, over eating, smoking etc.
And in my case, buying things I don't need like shoes...another shirt etc.
Only God can fill up that God shaped hole we all have inside ourselves.
Now, I must tear myself away from the ship...work calls.
Posted by kaboodle (# 11563) on
:
As far as responsibility for being overweight goes, I can't really speak to that. I know of examples where it was definite lifestyle choices but others where it appeared to be genetic (the former case is more usual in my experience than the latter).
As for being broke, well that is more something that people can do something about and there is more responsibility to be taken for your own actions. The latte factor is a way to fritter away large ammounts of money, as is alcohol and cigarettes.
It is easy to say they should exercise etc, but going outside of your comfort zone and changing ingrained habits can be very difficult. Certain body types (endomorph and mesomorph) are more prone to gaining weight than ectomorph types are.
You need to gear eating habits and diet to your body type and metabolism and also not overdo things. Junk food and sugar are huge factors in weight gain. Diets unless specifically tailored to the individual case tend to backfire because if deprived of food the body stores more when it gets some making one fatter. Of course eating and having little or no physical activity doesn't help either.
[ 11. July 2006, 16:28: Message edited by: kaboodle ]
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Astro:
I thought of this thread when I read this in the guardian today
That article also brings out a subtext to this whole discussion: an assumption so large it is unnoticed - that it is a discussion not about fat people, but overwhelmingly about fat women.
Men can be 'stocky', 'chunky', 'well-built', 'heavy', 'broad' - but women are only and always 'fat'.
Who was, further up the thread, was advocating mockery? I would like to see them with that 15st guy over there in the England T-shirt.
Posted by Amos (# 44) on
:
When I saw Firenze had posted, I hoped that it was to point out (correcting Genie) that the cheap cuts of meat are the tough ones, not the fat ones. Along with offal. They take a little more time and trouble to cook than a sirloin steak.
Posted by duchess (# 2764) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
quote:
Originally posted by Astro:
I thought of this thread when I read this in the guardian today
That article also brings out a subtext to this whole discussion: an assumption so large it is unnoticed - that it is a discussion not about fat people, but overwhelmingly about fat women.
Men can be 'stocky', 'chunky', 'well-built', 'heavy', 'broad' - but women are only and always 'fat'.
Who was, further up the thread, was advocating mockery? I would like to see them with that 15st guy over there in the England T-shirt.
I liked the article. It was very inforamtive. But I do have a bone to pick with this statement...
When fat people experience oppression, we experience it alone and our first reaction is not to fight back, our reaction is to give money to fat-hate industries (Weight Watchers, stomach amputation, etc). Instead of demanding self-respect, we seek approval from our oppressors.'
I do not consider Weight Watchers or stomach stapling to be "fat-hate industries". I think WW has an awesome plan for eating. I myself am too lazy to follow it, so I am losing weight instead on NutraSystem (space food is my joy these days).
Stomach stapling is severe but sometimes taken as a step to save somebody's life (somebody that is extremely obsease).
WW has 2 plans, one is eating unprocessed food mainly (the CORE plan). the other is eating from a point system.
NutraSystem (like Jenny Craig and others) is pre-pkgd food. You just eat and run. As I work a lot of hours and do charity work, plus church activities and such, I don't focus on cooking right now. It is easier to eat a sensible meal that is pre-pkgd for me most days and working for the most part. When the weight is gone, the challege as always will be to keep it off.
[eta: It is nice to have a regular discussion now. Just thinking that outloud so I had to share that.
thx.]
[ 11. July 2006, 20:00: Message edited by: duchess ]
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Amos:
When I saw Firenze had posted, I hoped that it was to point out (correcting Genie) that the cheap cuts of meat are the tough ones, not the fat ones.
Ah, my role in life. Cookery tips.
Posted by Amos (# 44) on
:
Sorry about that, Firenze.
My impression of WeightWatchers is that it is definitely an industry, and that it exists to sell its own ridiculous cakes and processed foods to the poor folk who belong to it. WW rent our church hall once a week. The people who come invariably drive, and park as close to the church as possible (usually in the churchyard). They have the expression of people about to pass their children through the fire to Moloch as they go into be weighed, and before going in they do their very best to evacuate their bowels and bladders completely. They depart clutching an armload of WW chocolate biscuits. In other words, with WW you too can continue to be fat while gradually going broke.
[ 11. July 2006, 20:31: Message edited by: Amos ]
Posted by duchess (# 2764) on
:
It is a business and they do sell their own products. But for the most part, they are a healthy eating plan recommended by most doctors in the USA (and probably worldwide I would imagine). I did not care for most of their products while I was on it, but i did lose 20 lbs. approx of the 44 or so I have lost through the years on WW.
Good for those people taking charge of their lives and health..and willing to go through the accountability of being weighed each week...trying to make positive life change.
[eta: their candy bars have transfats in them but it is only a trace amount, so I did not get to eat them much plus sugar (due to my trying to limit sugar/transfats in my diet).]
[ 11. July 2006, 20:34: Message edited by: duchess ]
Posted by Amos (# 44) on
:
Most doctors are keen for their patients to maintain a healthy weight by whatever means. If you read the adverts from the pharmaceutical industry in any US medical journal, the phrase 'US doctors recommend' will cause your skepticism alarm to activate. Bzzzzzzz! Who paid for your last vacation, Doc?
Eat less. Exercise more. Or grow a thicker skin. Personally, I love food, I'm a great cook, and I drive more than I walk. So if I ever want to fit into my Azzedine Alaias again, I've got to work at it.
(Re. the people who insist they consume only 600 calories a day and have body mass indices over 30; I am reminded of a former flatmate who believed that the calories of food she was not seen to eat didn't count. So she lived on lettuce and Wheatena
and waxed fat on triple-stuffed Oreos which she bought by the case and hid under her bed.)
Posted by duchess (# 2764) on
:
I am curious. How is Weight Watchers a bad program if it promotes sensible eating and working out? Which it does. *
Eating less and working out is indeed the key to weight loss. But we all have different ways to do that.
For me, I lose weight better and got my blood tests perfect (cholestrol, FSH, TSH etc) by eating less sugar and refine carbs. I watch my GI. So I am not afforded the luxury of just only eating less. It is an imperative to eat healthy.
Since our cultures do not always teach moderate sensible eating, it makes perfect sense to go to a place like Weight Watchers to learn to eat well. My coworker who is rather slim, works out all the time, a real Californian girl (stereotype, compliment in a nice way to her), went to Weight Watchers before just to some things about nutrician.
YMMV of course though.
*My skin is pretty tough. Except when it comes to teenage boys whispering about my fatness in Spanish slang behind my back during jail bible studies. I lost it there in jail and had to apologise (and got told "don't worry about it Miss Preacher Lady")
Adults though that I hardly know have little effect on my self-esteem these days. I am lucky to have people who love me regardless of my size in my life. My little niece for example throws her little arms around my neck no matter what I weigh.
![[Axe murder]](graemlins/lovedrops.gif)
[ 11. July 2006, 20:56: Message edited by: duchess ]
Posted by Jamac (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Anonymous Lurker Person:
I wish to God I had never tried to lose weight in the first place. [/QB]
I've been on SOF only about a week. My thought is from the view of a thin person who is married to someone who is constantly watching their diet- and this over 30 years. I can tell her I love her and "size doesn't matter" as much as I like (no rude comments!) but she doesn't believe me? What do all you agony aunts have to say about that?
Posted by Leila (# 11555) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamac:
I can tell her I love her and "size doesn't matter" as much as I like (no rude comments!) but she doesn't believe me? What do all you agony aunts have to say about that? [/QB]
Maybe she wants to loose weight for herself, for her health, for the way she feels. Maybe size does matter to her.
Maybe, just maybe! she doesn't want to loose weight for you and maybe, just maybe! you should do your best to support her in what she wants to do for her own life and instead of telling her that 'size doesn't matter' maybe you should be going for walks with her, swimming with her, eating healthy things with her.
Perhaps she doesn't want to be the person you're happy with. perhaps she wants to be the person she's happy with (just a suggestion)
Posted by Telepath (# 3534) on
:
Originally posted by duchess:
quote:
I am curious. How is Weight Watchers a bad program if it promotes sensible eating and working out? Which it does.
Well... maybe it's not a bad program. I don't have any personal experience of it, just hearsay from being in the company of people who do their plan.
Something that strikes me is that they seemed to accept continually gaining and losing weight as an ongoing condition of their lives. Since WW also apparently charge megabucks, I have to wonder whether they're really getting their money's worth, because it looks to me like the house always wins.
They also seem to promote industrial food-substitutes which you are encouraged to eat because they are low in points. But I haven't looked at the ingredient lists recently, so maybe that's changed.
I also noticed women eating high-calorie junk food and then starving for the rest of the day because they'd used up all their points. Presumably WW doesn't encourage this, but the points do seem to be the bottom line.
And I also got the sense that eating was a source of pain, not pleasure, for most of them.
However, maybe Weight Watchers does help people in ways that surpass what appear to me to be its disadvantages. They seem to teach portion control and nutrition, which clearly is no bad thing.
Posted by Autenrieth Road (# 10509) on
:
I think the WW information/plans can be used healthily, and they can be used unhealthily.
Learning how to get to where one is eating and moving healthily is hard. People can struggle with using the points satisfyingly. If calories-in less than calories-out is indeed the magic mantra, then the behaviour of someone who has used up all their points early on, and then resisting food the rest of the day, is not completely irrational.
However, there are other possibilities of what they could do within the WW plan, and that would be an excellent topic for discussion for a WW meeting (which always include a short presentation/discussion on various topics each week). "Healthy ways of continuing through the rest of the day when you've overloaded the calories-in part of the equation at the start of the day."
I think some of the weak points of WW are solely relying on the scale; and not enough emphasis on exercise (and the need to build/preserve muscle while losing fat). You can eat more if you're exercising, but that can become too much emphasis on simply losing weight and not enough on other indicators of health. There is also rather too much of an emphasis IMHO on "low-point ways to pretend you're eating the same-old same-old."
Leaders are encouraged to sell the products -- I believe they make a commission on them as well, but I could be wrong -- but none of the leaders I have known have really been much into pushing them at all.
Appendix on points:
For those who may not know, WW Points are roughly proportional to calories, with a bonus for fiber and a penalty for fat. Vegetables are 0 points, so you can always be eating something. Interestingly, the European formula for points has less of (if any?) penalty for fat; I wonder if this has to do with Americans having more of a problem with low-nutritional fatty foods that the US formula is tilted towards trying to break; or maybe Europeans cook with lots of healthy olive oil and it would be senseless to try to change that, or else Europeans just don't have the unhealthy-fatty-foods fixation, or something. Also European points are larger than American points, but Europeans get allotted fewer of them.
Posted by migo (# 11635) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
The logic there, Migo, would seem to be to move towards a rationing of healthcare where the condition can be proven to be the result of choice on the part of the patient.
A good deal of the discussion on this thread has been about what constitutes 'choice': some saying Yes, you can choose to eat healthy, home-cooked food and/or exercise sufficiently to those pointing out that economically and socially such choices may be a lot more difficult for some that others.
Well if they're going "it's nobody's buseness but mine if I'm fat", they're obviously making that choice. If there's a gray area, obviously give them the benefit of the doubt, but there are some of them for which there clearly is no doubt.
quote:
So, firstly, you would have to establish that the condition related directly to choices by the patient (and wasn't, for example, a metabolic disorder), and that they could have done otherwise whatever their social or personal situation.
I'm actually less concerned with how people got fat (with the moral issue) than with what they're trying to do about it. If they're at the very least cutting out certain really unhealthy foods (ie saturated fats, LDL cholestorol), not stuffing themself to the point of getting even fatter, and are seeing a doctor about it in a preventative sense and taking medication to prevent cardiac disease (or have established that it isn't a risk), that's good enough for me. There are things which aren't beyond anyone trying (assuming normal mental capacity), they don't always work, but if they haven't established that it doesn't work for them then there's a problem if they're not trying.
quote:
And then, of course, why stop at food? What about the droves turning up in casualty with injuries from drinking too much on a Saturday night? Never mind the ones who got into a car while intoxicated. And the smokers, of course. And those who engage in sports and injure themselves that way. And then the sufferers from RSI - did they have to take a job which involved continuous computer use? Couldn't they have done something else?
Alcohol and cigarettes are already taxed heavily, not enough in my opinion but it's a good start. RSI isn't treated through the regular medical system, it's physiotherapy which isn't covered at least by our medical system. Athletes paying premiums based on injury is somewhat backwards since they are otherwise increasing their health and putting less strain on the medical system in other areas.
quote:
In other words, auditing everyone's life to see how much their present situation is their own fault, is likely to intrusive and highly judgmental - and to what end? Is it not easier to say that the NHS should be like the grace of God, available to all?
I wasn't suggesting that as a necessity, although in some degree it should be done (especially smokers because of the risk of second hand smoke), but personal pressure on those who engage in behaviours with disregard for the consequences to others, regardless of what they are, is perfectly reasonable.
Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on
:
Coincidentally, I am currently reading the book, The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. You may have heard an interview with him recently on NPR, or seen an article in The Smithsonian. I did, anyway, and that's why I picked up the book.
He presents some rather compelling arguments that people have become significantly fatter since the 1970s as the result of US agricultural policies. Before that, farm policy was geared to preventing price collapse due to overproduction. After that, farm policy was geared to providing a constant supply of cheap corn to the food industry. The change in policy has hurt farmers, but it has been a boon to such companies as Cargill and ADM.
Yet even as the policy has hurt farmers, they have done what the policy makers wanted them to do, in a big way. (And the book explains why they had very little choice in doing so.) Our food industry creates far more food than we can consume, but they can only make a profit if they can encourage us to eat more. It used to be thought that people wouldn't generally eat more than they need. But the food industry figured out ways to overcome our biological programming to stop eating when we'd had enough -- primarily adding enough sweet and fat (high fructose corn syrup and corn oil) to kick in a separate system that, from an evolutionary point of view, allowed us to take advantage of feasts and so survive famines.
I'm only half-way through the book, but anyone interested in reasons that people are fat should certainly read it.
Posted by Mertseger (# 4534) on
:
Something in a Duchess post above in response to ALP's post gave me a strong hit that there is a importnant spiritual component in our relationship to food. I think merely trying to change one's focus to Christ would not suffice to address the issue for most (though, more power to you if that approach works) precisely because that approach smacks of the same denial and avoidance that may be driving the issue.
The witch who taught me gave us the following exercise for a week:
quote:
Close your eyes. Instead of trying to relax and clear your mind and do all the things you have learned to start a meditation, become aware of all the tensions in your body and words in your mind. Address those parts of yourself by saying, “I greet the Goddess: Thank you! I am in your service. Let us feed, for all things eat of each other.” Feel the floor with your hands and repeat the prayer. Feel your hair and address that part of yourself by saying, “I greet the Goddess: Thank you! I am in your service. Let us be in joy, for all things feed one another.” Be aware of your entire physical being, and repeat this second prayer. Focus on and be aware of the deep feeling that this meditation produces, and repeat the second prayer. Stretch. Enjoy the stretch. Use one of the prayers to address your food, your soap and the lights when you turn them on.
Now, I'm not suggesting that anyone having issues with food should make the leap to pantheistic Goddess worship (Wicca, after all, is known as the zaftig religion and for good reason). But there are several important lessons packed into this assignment. It's about honoring yourself, your body, your food, and how all those thing relate to each other in a healthy, balanced way.
The unconcious human food and body religion of our modern society is unbalanced in many ways. That unbalance reveals itself in pressures like the animosty that has rocked this thread. It also reveals itself in the foods that are available to eat and the conflicting pressures to consume them. Had your daily does of high fructose corn syrup today, America? Can you possibly avoid it?
It is not easy to change yourself or the culture. But any change must begin, if it will, with honoring God and Self and food. Greeting your food with gratitude and a concious intent to honor its use in your body is a place to start that transformation. And Christ and your relation to him certainly should support that process.
Posted by Jamac (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Leila:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jamac:
Perhaps she doesn't want to be the person you're happy with. perhaps she wants to be the person she's happy with (just a suggestion)
Posted by Jamac (# 11621) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Jamac:
quote:
Originally posted by Leila:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jamac:
Perhaps she doesn't want to be the person you're happy with. perhaps she wants to be the person she's happy with (just a suggestion)
'
I agree with all of the above Leila. A just rebuke. (but I do adore her at any size)
Posted by Duo Seraphim (# 256) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Fiddleback:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
And if anyone else tells me I have my priorities wrong, I will kill them. With my bare hands.
Or you will just sit on them.
Fiddleback, you appeared to have missed my general warning about inappropriately personal remarks.
You wouldn't want to make that mistake again.
Duo Seraphim, Purgatory Host
Posted by migo (# 11635) on
:
Death threats (even untargetted) are ok, but insults aren't? I didn't get that impression from the posting guidelines.
Posted by Huia (# 3473) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Coincidentally, I am currently reading the book, The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. You may have heard an interview with him recently on NPR, or seen an article in The Smithsonian. I did, anyway, and that's why I picked up the book.
Thanks Josephine. I'm going to track this down in my local library. I have become interested in the politics of food lately as I struggle to change the exercise/eating balance in my own life.
Huia
Posted by The Silent Acolyte (# 1158) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by migo:
Death threats (even untargetted) are ok, but insults aren't? I didn't get that impression from the posting guidelines.
migo, sweetie, you may be an internet wizard, but when you reference interesting bits elsewhere, do you think you could do us the courtesy of a link?
Posted by Duo Seraphim (# 256) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by migo:
Death threats (even untargetted) are ok, but insults aren't? I didn't get that impression from the posting guidelines.
migo - questions about posting guidelines and general Ship's business must be raised in the Styx - not on this thread.
Duo Seraphim, Purgatory Host
Posted by Amos (# 44) on
:
Mertseger: Great post. Thank you.
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
I'm not particulary keen on WW, I agree very much with most of the points made by Telepath.
The good points are that WW can help give people who don't have it a basic grasp of nutrition, and all the measuring can help with portion control. One of the main ways food manufacturers mess with people's perceptions is documenting their products in unrealistic portions so they can be marketed as low calorie\low fat... as if anyone would ever chop the ready-made lasagne in half, or eat only a third of a packet of crisps. Figuring out points puts you wise to those tricks, as well as giving you a good idea of how much (e.g.) 50g of cereal actually is. The meetings may also play a social role for lonely people (though I'm not sure that friendships based on a shared interest in yo-yo dieting will always be the healthiest).
But I do think that the WW programme has the effect (intended or unintended) of encouraging people to eat unhealthy expensive processed foods. It's comparatively difficult and time consuming to work out the points value of a home-made meal, a ready-meal or processed product will already be listed in the book. Fast-food restaurants - whose products are nothing if not predictable - are listed in the points book, high-quality gourmet restaurants cooking good food using local fresh ingredients aren't.
The obsessive tracking and recording of points can get in the way of common sense. I've genuinely been away on business with a guy who explained that he couldn't come out for a good meal with the rest of the team, even if he had a salad, because that would mean eating an unknown quantity of points and ruin his journalling for the week. He had to go to Burger King, so he'd know what to write in his points diary and could plan the rest of his week's eating accordingly. I'd never have gone that far, but I can empathise - the points become the object of the exercise, the only indicator of how virtuous or useless you are.
The weigh-ins also focus on weight (duh!) in a way that isn't always helpful. Women especially can have wild weight fluctuations from week to week, and can be very demoralised if a week of perfect points ends up with a telling-off because they've gained a pound. And of course someone exercising more than usual may gain more in muscle than they've lost in fat over a couple of weeks, and be left feeling like a failure at weigh-in.
A lot depends on the leader, how much they understand and emphasise nutrition, whether they take into account health indicators other than simple weight, and whether they actually talk to members about their individual situation rather than just lauding the week's biggest loser. But I think it can be a less than healthy influence.
Posted by Matt Black (# 2210) on
:
I have found WW's techniques to be helpful in the past - combined with gym visits, I managed to lose 9lbs over three months before my wedding (only to put most of them back on on honeymoon!
)using their points techniques. But I should add that I didn't actually join; rather, I bought their recipe book and fairly rigidly adhered to their points system using it.
Posted by Emma. (# 3571) on
:
RE: ww - Ive steared clear of them and their like as the people who I know who have used tit tend to end up yo you dieting or putting it back on afterwards. Also it seems to me that it encourages all the focus to be on food/weight/fat and that can lead to a negative self image/ obsesive attitude to food instead of focusing on eitehr root causes or positive steps. I really dont like the weigh in idea either - the sense of guilt/ that self image and worth is attatched to a number etc.
On the other hand - i like this pre-packaged good for you food idea (aka duchess).... do we have the in the uk? is it vastly expensive?
I want to focus on good habits, healthy eating and positive exercise steps (rather than size/weight/calorie counting) but I must admit im not quite their yet either!!
Posted by Huia (# 3473) on
:
As a diabetic I find WW food has too much sugar in it, (they may adjust for this with people who actually do their programme, I don't know) as well as being more expensive than alternatives.
I have the luxury of being time-rich so I prefer to cook most of my food from scratch, then I know what is in it. I realise other people may not be as fortunate.
Huia
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on
:
A point I thought both Mertseger's and Josephine's post touched on, is how remote we are from 'natural' food.
Even the 'fresh' fruit and veg we buy may have been treated with pesticides, waxed, chilled, irradiated etc to inhibit or control the natural cycle of ripening and decaying. Drugs in the meat, heavy metal in the fish, and a whole chemistry lab in the processed stuff.
We can't go back to growing our own vegetables/slaughtering our own pig. Some of us can afford or have available the faux peasant of buying organic, or shopping at farmers' markets. But mostly it's about buying the products of industrial production.
[ 12. July 2006, 10:17: Message edited by: Firenze ]
Posted by I_am_not_Job (# 3634) on
:
I was thinking about this thread a lot yesterday (whilst out on a jog
- my time alone from the world when I can relax and think) and came to the view that the 'eat less, exercise more' mantra which many here are espousing, though some others feel it is easier said than done, or even doesn't work, is actually not necessarily right.
I felt that 'fewer calories in THAN calories out' was more accurate. In that an athlete will probably eat a lot more than the average person (trust me, I feed, sorry, am married to, one
but it's ok as they still burn more (or the same number of) calories than they consume.
Thus in answer to those fatter people who say they eat very little, it's not necessarily that they're now on a startvation diet as has been posited here by some(ie. they've started to cut back so much that the body is storing calories it normally wouldn't), but that their maintenance calorific level has got very low. ie. they expend so little energy because they're not able, so the body needs to take in very little to simply maintain it's current state. (Obviously how they got to their current size may be due to a wide variety of reasons and over a long period of time or a long time ago).
Therefore, if they want to change, they either need to exercise more (which'll be very hard as they won't have much energy to do it due to the few calories they consume), or they should actually eat more to fuel the exercise. No easy answers unfortunately!
Posted by kaboodle (# 11563) on
:
Has anyone seen the documentary "Diet Confidential"? It would seem that the rate of obesity in North America is due, in significant part, to lifestyle choices. Sitting watching TV, driving when you could walk, eating junkfood, not getting enough exercise.
Broke could be a result of spending tons of money on junkfood etc. so the answer to "Is it my fault I'm fat and broke?" is often at least partly "Yes." People need to realise that often there is more responsibility on their part for their predicament than they are willing to admit.
I know of a few where a properly tailored diet and exercise had a huge effect (lost 80lbs). I know a person at our College who last year was obese, and when I came back after the Summer holidays had lost most of the weight and looked terrific. Another story I heard was someone who lost 150lbs by dilligently getting up each morning and going swimming and eating healthily, so from these examples I would conclude that fault can lie with the person, because barring metabolic or genetic factors, there is much one can do.
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on
:
Slightly, but only slightly, to one side - do you notice how 'I lost #lbs' is a Testimony? X is wretched, oppressed, hopeless - then they Find The Way - there is striving, perserverance, trials - but ultimately Victory. They lose Y stones, and all the trumpets sound for them on the other side. For they are now of the Slimline Elect.
Stoater of a plot, Pilgrim's Progress, and still wearing well.
Posted by duchess (# 2764) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Emma.:
...
On the other hand - i like this pre-packaged good for you food idea (aka duchess).... do we have the in the uk? is it vastly expensive? ...
I just tried looking on the internet and found nothing for the UK. I ran across Jenny Craig in Oz/Nz but that is it. TRIVIA: (Jenny Craig started when the founder took the company NutraSystem started from and went to Oz to start up her own version due to the 7 years copyright law...so they were Down Under before the USA even though Jenny herself is American).
I do hope someone from the UK can find something to peruse in pre-pkged diet food plans there.
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by duchess:
I do hope someone from the UK can find something to peruse in pre-pkged diet food plans there.
There's Slimfast. But that's an abomination against nature. I can't think of anything else.
Posted by Emma. (# 3571) on
:
Noo thats bad and evil - i think i saw a student with these little boxes that had really healthy things in it that she said had been done for her - it was more that kind of thing! (pulses and healthy looking odd things)
Posted by Anonymous Lurker Person (# 11642) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Rat:
The obsessive tracking and recording of points can get in the way of common sense. I've genuinely been away on business with a guy who explained that he couldn't come out for a good meal with the rest of the team, even if he had a salad, because that would mean eating an unknown quantity of points and ruin his journalling for the week. He had to go to Burger King, so he'd know what to write in his points diary and could plan the rest of his week's eating accordingly. I'd never have gone that far, but I can empathise - the points become the object of the exercise, the only indicator of how virtuous or useless you are.
This is the sort of thing that happened to me. I got very obsessional about calories. All social events and meals cooked by anyone but myself were just occasions for me to be anxious and worried, and avoid them if possible. Eating something that I thought was too high-calorie, especially if I didn't really know for sure, was often the trigger for a binge, because I figured I had screwed up that day anyway, and I hated myself for it.
I added and recalculated calories many times a day, trying to decide whether I could allow myself a banana (105 calories) or whether I should restrict myself to half a white grapefruit (37 calories).
It was a horrible way to live.
Posted by Huia (# 3473) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Rat:
There's Slimfast. But that's an abomination against nature. I can't think of anything else.
There's a product available in NZ with the same name that has bzp (which is used in party pills and I believe started life as an animal remedy) as its active ingredient.
There is also an organisation called "Slimfast" that uses blood tests to prescribe a diet for each person to follow. Customers have ongoing appointments with a "weightloss counsellor" for a weigh-in and advice on weightloss. It costs $880.
Huia
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
Slimfast are also very expensive.
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Huia:
quote:
Originally posted by Rat:
There's Slimfast. But that's an abomination against nature. I can't think of anything else.
There's a product available in NZ with the same name that has bzp (which is used in party pills and I believe started life as an animal remedy) as its active ingredient.
There is also an organisation called "Slimfast" that uses blood tests to prescribe a diet for each person to follow. Customers have ongoing appointments with a "weightloss counsellor" for a weigh-in and advice on weightloss. It costs $880.
Goodness. I don't think ours is like either of those, it's just a meal replacement thing. You're supposed to have 2 milkshakes or bars, and one proper meal of food, a day. The milkshakes taste manky, or did back when I did it. Goodness knowns what sort of rubbish is in them. And, as Papio says, a very expensive way to not lose any weight.
Are party pills like speed? I think that diet products with amphetamine or amphetamine-like substances are illegal here, though you can get 'herbal' diet supplements that hint at a speed-type effect. I never tried those, but a friend did - they didn't seem to have any noticable effect. The same friend and I also tried large daily doses of caffeine tablets on the grounds that they ought to speed up our metabolism and burn fat. That didn't work, either.
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Anonymous Lurker Person:
I added and recalculated calories many times a day, trying to decide whether I could allow myself a banana (105 calories) or whether I should restrict myself to half a white grapefruit (37 calories).
It was a horrible way to live.
I recognise what you are describing, I've gone through periods of obsessing like that. It is horrible. For me the focus on counting was always a way of avoiding other things, and feeling in control of at least one thing. I can only be thankful that for me those phases passed (by themselves, through no virtue on my part).
Thank you for your contribution on this thread, by the way.
Posted by ananke (# 10059) on
:
As far as exercise goes though, that's a place people really need to back off from judgement.
Example: for SIX years I had a tumour in my knee that made all walking painful. It made swimming painful. It took a dedicated osteopath to go beyond 'lose weight fatty'. Not one of the doctors, specialists or well-meaning bystanders stopped to think that since movement was painful, exercise wasn't helping.
So now I've got no cartilage in one knee, which has effectively made walking just as painful (although I at least have a kneecap so that's a blessing). So again exercise isn't the best option for me. I still go and do weight training, and as much cardio as possible but commentary like "a ten minute walk won't hurt you" is a crock. I'm not about to go through me medical history every time someone says it, but no matter how clear I make it, every weightloss 'advisor' thinks they know better than me about what works with my body.
As it is I'm happy with my body. Yes my left leg is a mass of scar tissue and pain, but I can still walk (mostly) and I've cleared up a lot of my other problems.
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
:
Exercise is an challenge often. I have bad knees - not as bad as yours ananke, but still sometimes sore, particularly when I do a lot of walking. Walking is the form of exercise that I find easiest, and do a reasonable amount. However, if I walk more, my knees start to ache - not least, of course, because I am overweight. So I have to weigh up the benefits of walking ( in fact most exercise involves the knees, so it doesn't really matter ) as exercise against the fact that too much of it may cripple me later in life.
ALP - the calorie counting thing sounds awful. And, IMO, it is a denial of us being ourselves. We should be happy with our bodies and ourselves as we are, if nothing else because loving our bodies is probably the best motivation to making some weight reduction when possible.
Posted by CrookedCucumber (# 10792) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by ananke:
As far as exercise goes though, that's a place people really need to back off from judgement.
That's true. I am grateful that, as I bumble through middle age, I continue to enjoy, and be capable of, intense exercise. Many people are not so fortunate.
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
We should be happy with our bodies and ourselves as we are, if nothing else because loving our bodies is probably the best motivation to making some weight reduction when possible.
Actually, I am thinking loving food is probably the road to health and happiness.
Owing to a slight domestic crisis, I did not pack a lunch today, but instead picked up a prawn mayo sandwich and some fruit at Tescos. I didn't realise it was Specially Low Fat. It was vile. I have just eaten 2 chocolate hobnobs to obliterate the taste - and now realise they reason they don't taste nice either is the chocolate is so far from the 50%+ organic dark that I love.
Moral: A little of what you fancy does you good, and a lot of what you don't doesn't.
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
Firenze, you get my first
for that. I very very regularly try to convince people that many people's food problems (and I dont' just mean weight either) would be solved by better listening to their bodies. Certainly not everyone is able to follow the advice of their bodies and that wouldn't solve everyone's problems. However, I have had a few food issues myself and solved them by realizing that if I was craving cottage cheese, steak, hamburger and chese that maybe I needed to add more protein into my life. (At the time I was living with vegetarians but I didn't like tofu--needed to get over being a pickypicky or move.)
Similarly, I lost five pounds (wasn't really overweight, just not fit) by simply not eating when I wasn't hungry! Now obviously that won't work for everyone but it took me so long to realize I could just skip meals if I wasn't hungry etc.
Posted by ChastMastr (# 716) on
:
((((ALP))))
Posted by tclune (# 7959) on
:
There's an interesting article in Slate today on the topic of obesity that includes some interesting additional causes for its increase in recent years. You may find the article here . FWIW
--Tom Clune
[ 13. July 2006, 18:29: Message edited by: tclune ]
Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Rat:
quote:
Originally posted by Anonymous Lurker Person:
I added and recalculated calories many times a day, trying to decide whether I could allow myself a banana (105 calories) or whether I should restrict myself to half a white grapefruit (37 calories).
It was a horrible way to live.
I recognise what you are describing, I've gone through periods of obsessing like that. It is horrible. For me the focus on counting was always a way of avoiding other things, and feeling in control of at least one thing. I can only be thankful that for me those phases passed (by themselves, through no virtue on my part).
Thank you for your contribution on this thread, by the way.
I think that calorie counting and "point counting" are bad. It's obsessing about food and making the whole idea of eating a bad experience.
At school I did the calorie counting thing. I limited myself to about 1000 calories a day. I got very skinny. I was starving. I binged. I got fat. I went back to 1000 calories a day. When I ate more than 1000 calories a day, I felt like a cheat and a loser.
Years later, after a couple of kids, I went to Weight Watchers and got handed the points and calories booklets and listened to the "leader" or whatever the heck she was go on and on about how important it was to check each day that your points target wasn't exceeded and to her "confession" about how she'd eaten a piece of cake that day and that was her entire points allowance taken up with just one snack.
It was insane. I told her that she sounded like obsessive teenager me and asked for my money back. She looked at me like I was nuts and gave it back with a "we don't want anyone who's obsessive here".
That's the whole problem with dieting and diets, including Weight Watchers. They make the person doing them think way too much about what goes in and makes them hate food.
WW and the rest would be far better to teach people to understand food (which sounds pompous, but I can't think of a better way to say it) and, as Firenze says, to love food. But by love, I mean a sort of respectful, loving thing. Not spending all day each day together. Appreciation, rather than love, perhaps.
And they'd be far better teaching people how to cook really good food. So many people can't and it's not a skill you can just pick up from looking at a book.
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
as Firenze says, to love food. But by love, I mean a sort of respectful, loving thing. Not spending all day each day together. Appreciation, rather than love, perhaps.
You could see this spinning off into a Food Dating Thread, where you hope to meet, if not the Meal of Your Dreams, at least a decent, nutritious type. This week's homework: eat an eclair.
Seriously though, there are these two strands - the hedonistic, Slow Food, Nigel Slater-y approach, all redolent of long lunches in sun-dappled gardens with good friends and good wine. And the punitive, flesh-denying, self-subjugating that seems to be about being looked upon, desired, successful, triumphant over time and age and decay.
Are these not the defacto religions of our time? The worship of either Dionysus or Apollo?
Posted by imagin8or (# 2991) on
:
I won't pretend to have read more than this page of replies, because it's 10 pages long. However, I have a story of my own which might be useful to some.
I myself was over 17 stone* at the end of my degree. I'm tall, but that was still not healthy at all - 40 inch waist. Part of me wanted people to not judge me because of my weight, but at the same time it was my own fault for overeating and not looking after my body.
Approximately 9 months later I was 13 stone, and am now (2 years later) 13 stone 8. So the weight came off, and has now stayed off. Sure, I'm not quite as light as a was then, but that naturally varies, and I'm actively trying to get rid of my belly.
How did it happen, you're asking? What's the secret? It was Atkins, wasn't it? Or was it the GI thing?
No.
It was not Atkins, GI or Weightwatchers. I did not add up points, buy low-fat everything or become obsessed. And no, I neither hated food nor vomited it up.
I did two things. I started eating healthily, and started exercising. Standard, old-school, I've-been-taught-this-since-I-was-5 balanced diet. And exercise.
The first stage was to gain control of my eating habits and learn that I did not need or want to eat such an incredible amount of food. So for the first couple of months I only ate at work. I am a lodger, so I just had nothing in my fridge or cupboard. Fruit, yes. Veg, yes. Nothing else. Then I could happily eat my cereal breakfast with semi-skimmed milk, and a normal meal at lunch time, and that was it. Other nibbling was only cucumbers with Marmite, or other fruit and veg.
The second thing was to cut out processed foods. I'm not saying nothing ever passed my lips, but I stopped eating chocolate. Yes, it's addictive, but yes, you can still survive without it. Who is in control of your life, you or Cadburys? Also to go were cakes, biscuits, crisps, etc - complex sugar, carb and fat products. All those things are only for when you are a able to balance your diet. If you are still learning, as I was, just don't eat them. I used to always turn to the cupboard with those items in in my parents house, automatically. When I returned home after a month or two of not eating them, I automatically opened the cupboard, and then I looked at the contents. I didn't really want anything there, I was just bored. So I closed the cupboard.
I switched to simple food. Ham sandwiches, salads (with no mayo), avoiding anything whose main constituent is fat. No microwave meals, no wierd sauces, running a mile from things that are packaged, plastic-wrapped and processed. You want to be able to see what you are eating and know why you want to eat it. This ham sandwich I made contains some good, lean ham, some low-fat spread, some bread and some fresh salad. That's protein, fat, carbs, vitamins.
And I started exercising. I was scared into going to ballroom dancing lessons by the thought of a formal event at church with two left feet. At ballroom I found a great community of people, discovered a social life and joined in. Dancing grew from one day a week to three or four. It's very hard work, and good cardio, particularly Jive which I'm rubbish at but adore. I had a rowing machine from a previous attempt at being fit, and started to use it properly - 15 minutes at 30rpm, then 2 sets of that with a break, then 3.
This wasn't possible without God. I had tried to lose weight before, but it hadn't worked. But God put me in a position with a job a train ride and 50 minutes of walking away, and helped me to be strong. With his help I could get through the evenings of hunger, refusing to go to the shop (I am lazier than I am a glutton). With his help and his motivation I could pull for 15 minutes on the rowing machine, at least 5 of those through determination and focussing on God.
So what is my point in all this? I think it's to be serious and work with God. Don't just eat lo-fat things. Don't just do a bit more exercise. Don't just pray for help. Being healthy means being active in whatever ways are available to you - if you have injuries, to work around them; eating healthily to give your body what it needs and not what it doesn't; taking care of your mind, that you don't obsess or hate yourself.
Being overweight is not ok. It's a health risk. It's a mind risk. It's a spiritual risk. You are still a person though, you are worth no less because of the extra material around you. Don't fall into either of the pits - feeling worthless because of your weight, or feeling that being fat is ok. You are ok, but your weight is not. So take ownership, take charge of it. Live as a child of God, not a slave to consumption and image. You are more important and worth far more than the magazines will tell you, more than people will think you're worth, and far more than you know yourself. So honour the God that made you worth so much by taking care of the body you have; you are worth too much to have all the problems of being too fat. You and God together can make it.
If you want a simple diet plan, from someone who has been there but is in no way qualified, then here it is: be healthy. Lose everything that is a sugar-fat combo, and don't replace it with lo-fat, lo-carb lo-taste versions. Just lose it and eat a banana instead. Go back to the idea of living healthily. The best diet is a balanced one, because it's a diet for life. And exercise. Push yourself. Focus on God, don't give up on your targets. The point is health, so don't do what will injure you, or work anything that hurts.
So here is your challenge. You've clearly got stamina to get to this point in the post:
Change your lifestyle, with God as your reason and your aid. Do not let up on being healthy, even when you can think of nothing but food. Do not put off the exercise, it's as important as not eating Mars bars.
You are not unchangeable or immovable. Your worth is not related to your waist size. Your life, your health, your example to those around you are worth the frustration, anger and pain. Choose to live, and to be healthy, at every turn. Know that you are weak, but that with God you can be strong.
Know that you will eat whatever you leave in the house, and stop buying those things. Get your treats in restaurants, at friends' houses, never at home. If you can, walk instead of driving. If you're married, have lots of sex.
Feel life, feel alive. Whatever you do that makes you feel lethargic, stop it. Stop watching TV and go for a walk with your friend or loved one. Life is about you, the people you meet, the God you worship. Feel it, live it.
There are no quick and easy fixes. But there is taking responsibility, living as God wants you to live, being active and full of life. I was there, and now I'm here. It's life changing, because of what you will learn about God and about yourself. Now, don't reply, switch off the screen, turn off the TV, and make peace with God. Then, knees permitting, go for a half-hour walk and see how far you can go.
God be with you.
* 17 stone ~ 108kg, or 240 pounds
** 13 stone ~ 83kg or 185 pounds
*** 13 stone 8 ~ 87kg or 192 pounds
Posted by I_am_not_Job (# 3634) on
:
Good for you, imagin8tor. I hope you don't get flamed as a relative newbie. Yes, some people are overweight for genuine medical reasons, but a lot aren't, and with a bit of work you can achieve change, and you don't have to be an ectomorph (naturally skinny build, as opposed to mesomorph - curvy, or endomorph - apple or pear shaped) for that to happen. It doesn't mean by losing weight you're morally superior either, it just means you've acheived something and it's ok that you should share your joy.
Posted by Pearalis (# 9035) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by imagin8or:
If you're married, have lots of sex.
Now, don't reply, switch off the screen, turn off the TV, and make peace with God. Then, knees permitting, go for a half-hour walk and see how far you can go.
Wot if you're not married. Plus its midnight, freezing, dark and dangerous.
Posted by I_am_not_Job (# 3634) on
:
Put on your favourite CD and get down and boogie. (quietly if you have neighbours and thin walls
)
Posted by ananke (# 10059) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by imagin8or:
Being overweight is not ok. It's a health risk. It's a mind risk. It's a spiritual risk. You are still a person though, you are worth no less because of the extra material around you. Don't fall into either of the pits - feeling worthless because of your weight, or feeling that being fat is ok. You are ok, but your weight is not. So take ownership, take charge of it. Live as a child of God, not a slave to consumption and image. You are more important and worth far more than the magazines will tell you, more than people will think you're worth, and far more than you know yourself. So honour the God that made you worth so much by taking care of the body you have; you are worth too much to have all the problems of being too fat. You and God together can make it.
God doesn't give a flying flick if I'm fat. I'm healthy (apart from the previously mentioned problems which are nowt to do with weight). My worth is not dependent upon a scale - no matter my weight I can still write, I can still love, I can still read.
If I were a slave to consumption and image I'd probably still be fat, I'd just hate myself. The biggest point is I don't hate myself and I'd rather not be told God wants me to hate myself for being fat - which seems to be the bent of this particular screed.
Posted by Huia (# 3473) on
:
imagin8or, I might be more inclined to wade through your long post if you had shown the courtesy of reading at least some of the previous pages.
Huia
[ 15. July 2006, 11:33: Message edited by: Huia ]
Posted by Left at the Altar (# 5077) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Pearalis:
quote:
Originally posted by imagin8or:
If you're married, have lots of sex.
Now, don't reply, switch off the screen, turn off the TV, and make peace with God. Then, knees permitting, go for a half-hour walk and see how far you can go.
Wot if you're not married. Plus its midnight, freezing, dark and dangerous.
Excuses, excuses.
Whether it's extra-marital sex, or walking, at midnight, when it's dark and dangerous is the best time.
Just Do It.
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on
:
And wet, LATA, don't forget wet.
Oh, it's wet and it's dark and it's dangerous
The Thing That People Do
Posted by Pearalis (# 9035) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Left at the Altar:
Excuses, excuses.
Whether it's extra-marital sex, or walking, at midnight, when it's dark and dangerous is the best time.
Just Do It.
But excuses are my thing ! You want to take away my thing !
Also I'm confused about how to have extra-marital sex. If I go for a walk at midnight and get assaulted by a married stranger does that count?
Didn't they get rid of Just Do It for the Swoosh? Like how Prince became The Artist Formally Known as Prince, then The Artist, then Mr Squiggle.
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Pearalis:
Wot if you're not married. Plus its midnight, freezing, dark and dangerous.
Stay in bed and practice
Posted by Cod (# 2643) on
:
Take a cricket bat (or a baseball bat if from North America). Smash your television set with the bat repeatedly.
Take the remains outside, set light to them, and dance around in an energetic manner.
Do the same to your video recorder.
Computers are exempt, because I use one.
Posted by Carys (# 78) on
:
Yesterday, as I wondered back from going swimming (prompted partly by sitting and reading through the first n pages of this thread), I decided to pop into the shop and bought myself a mars ice-cream kingsize. This made me realise that something that has not been brought up on this thread is the increase of `kingsize' and `big eat' options when it comes to snacks, so rather than eating 35g of crisps you get 50g (for example). That definitely seems to me to be a way in which food companies are encouraging us to eat more unhealthily.
Carys
Posted by Carys (# 78) on
:
Ooops. At some point, I will learn the difference between wondering and wandering. I was doing the latter to get back from the swimming pool.
Carys
Posted by The Silent Acolyte (# 1158) on
:
Carys, as an example in the other direction, the stoned adolescent who sits down to a half-gallon tub of ice cream has to satisfy her munchy-cravings these days with only 56 ounces, rather than the accustomed 64.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
I'm trying to imagine the response most people would get from a request for more sex for the purposes of losing weight.
Marriage - where one acquires a personal exercise machine of the opposite sex.
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on
:
Probbly why the local loose woman was often known as The Village Bicycle.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
:
Want lots of cheese. Not allowed.
Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I'm trying to imagine the response most people would get from a request for more sex for the purposes of losing weight.
"Wel dear, you wanted me to lose weight, so I've been having it away with all the girls in the office. I think I've lost nearly half a stone. I knew you'd be happy."
[sound of frying pan hitting head]
Posted by Campbellite (# 1202) on
:
After wading through this thread (Whew!), I might add that dialysis and a liver and kidney transplant have been most beneficial in helping me lose 75 Lbs/34 Kgs since this time last year. Not that I would recommend it as a weight loss option...
One major down side of this is that no matter what I wear, it feels like I am wearing someone else's clothes. (I have literally had my trousers fall to my ankles because they were too big. Don't you just hate it when that happens?)
I am, however, still broke. I can't even pay attention.
Posted by Cod (# 2643) on
:
Josephine,
I am sorry that I haven't been able to reply to this earlier. I travelled back to NZ from Britain the week before last (during which flight I was unfortunate enough to sit next to a fat gentleman who continually overflowed into my seat), and since then have been catching up with other things.
I think I may be presuptious enough to make the simple comment that if you a) avoid convenience food, b) don't eat too much of it and c) have some sort of knowledge about how to cook you are less likely to get fat. I wouldn't say that's conclusive. Of course some people are fat because they have genuine medical conditions. Or because they are on medication. My elder brother is overweight because he takes medication to control his psychosis. If he didn't take them, he'd probably soon be dead. Most people don't fit into either of these categories. I find it interesting that obesity in the West continues to rise. Obviously the reasons for this have both to do with a) the choices people have on offer and b) how they exercise their power of choice. That explains why France appears to have less of a problem with obesity, and north America more.
It does also explain why obesity (as opposed to a whole host of other things) is not a problem in Africa.
Now to your post: It is certainly presumptious to say that one cannot make that simple point with reference to anyonen at all by reference to a hard case (yours). I will say that your description of your day is familiar to me. I congratulate you on your use of time. But having said that, I notice this part of it:
quote:
There was only so much time in a day, and keeping my kids clean, well fed, and well rested were more important to me than going over their homework. There really wasn't time for everything. And if, for example, I also had to look after an elderly relative -- then something would have had to give up something else -- something else that was indeed important, but not as important as the other things. Cooking from scratch probably would have been it.
Which means that we agree. If you really think that doing a weekly shop is more important to me than occasional emergencies then you have extrapolated something from my post that I neither said or implied in any way at all. Failing that, the fuel you put in your kids' bodies is of course important (and incidentally, I never had my homework checked as a child because my parents relied on the teacher to keep tabs on such things. I've always thought it a rather odd habit)
I will say one thing extra, although I probably should not. Fiddleback's comments on this thread were not helpful. Ridicule never helps anyone do anything. What is ten times more offensive than anything Fiddleback, Cosmo, or anyone else has said is that while a good third of the world frequently starves a much smaller part of it bemoans its obesity problem and cynically uses medical conditions in order to avoid the moral blame. Or alternatively, the "I am an island" argument that obesity is no-one's business but one's own. No, I am not making any comment on any particular individual, certainly not anyone who has posted on this thread because I assume people are honest, but taking a step back and looking at the issue on the level of society as a whole this clearly is what has happened. It is really very simple, we have too much and if we had a bit less we'd ironically be better off. Food is no exception.
Posted by Mousethief (# 953) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
It is really very simple.
No, it isn't. This is something you, and Fiddleback, and Cosmo, just don't understand. It's not really simple. If it were really simple, then there wouldn't be a problem in the first place.
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
What is ten times more offensive than anything Fiddleback, Cosmo, or anyone else has said is that while a good third of the world frequently starves a much smaller part of it bemoans its obesity problem and cynically uses medical conditions in order to avoid the moral blame. Or alternatively, the "I am an island" argument that obesity is no-one's business but one's own. No, I am not making any comment on any particular individual, certainly not anyone who has posted on this thread because I assume people are honest, but taking a step back and looking at the issue on the level of society as a whole this clearly is what has happened. It is really very simple, we have too much and if we had a bit less we'd ironically be better off. Food is no exception.
As Mousethief says, it really isn't simple, otherwise it'd all be solved and there'd be no need for a huge, multi-million pound 'diet industry'.
But accepting what you say - that fat is a moral issue in a starving world - you have to also accept that the opposite is true. The rich (and in that context all of us posting are rich) spending huge amounts of time, energy and money in pursuit of a skinny body in a world where people are starving doesn't strike me as particularly edifying either. I find it difficult to see the fashionable women pictured in Nonpropheteer's link earlier as morally superior to someone who has to work for a living, spends less time on their beauty regime and is therefore a bit plump. And since you don't believe medical conditions can cause weight gain, I presume people with compulsive eating disorders are included in the general condemnation? Fine, as long as anorexics and bulimics are included on the same terms.
To steal from Telepath, the problem is that we live in an eating disordered society. I just get irritable when one symptom of that - the overweight - gets singled out for vilification.
Posted by magdalenegospel (# 11619) on
:
The Malawi comment - that there aren't people with over-eating disorders in Malawi - is something of a red herring.
I'm reliably informed* that there is next to no dyslexia (of the sort that is diagnosed in an educational setting) in Italian speakers, due to the way that the language is constructed.
It doesn't mean that they can't be dyslexic in another language.
I suspect that Binge-eating disorder and other metabolic disorders are triggered by certain circumstances in the developed world, in addition to the availability of food.
Just a thought.
*Butterworth [i}the mathematical brain[/i]. Stansfield J, various papers on the prevalence of dyslexic disorders in European languages.
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by magdalenegospel:
The Malawi comment - that there aren't people with over-eating disorders in Malawi - is something of a red herring.
I'm not a geneticist, or whatever one has to be to have an in-depth knowledge of such things, but is it mot possible that people there do have over-eating disorders, but lack the ability to over-eat?
In other words, is the fact that they can't over-eat enough to show that no disorder exists in any of them?
[ 23. July 2006, 17:49: Message edited by: Papio ]
Posted by Newman's Own (# 420) on
:
I am growing so tired of the idea that everything would be just so wonderful if the entire world were poor and starving.
Oh, I forgot... we're all rich. Yet I wish that having things such as running water, food of some kind on the table, electricity, a better chance at a longer lifespan and good general health than our parents had, were things for which we could be grateful rather than guilty.
(I would not be surprised - and I am not asking - if there are many Ship mates who either are or at some time have been struggling just to survive.)
Posted by Papio (# 4201) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
It is really very simple.
No, it isn't. This is something you, and Fiddleback, and Cosmo, just don't understand. It's not really simple. If it were really simple, then there wouldn't be a problem in the first place.
And this thread would be over long ago.
Posted by Telepath (# 3534) on
:
Originally posted by Mousethief:
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
It is really very simple.
No, it isn't. This is something you, and Fiddleback, and Cosmo, just don't understand. It's not really simple. If it were really simple, then there wouldn't be a problem in the first place.
It is really simple.
It's just not really easy, for many people.
Posted by Telepath (# 3534) on
:
Originally posted by Newman's Own:
quote:
I am growing so tired of the idea that everything would be just so wonderful if the entire world were poor and starving.
Oh, I forgot... we're all rich. Yet I wish that having things such as running water, food of some kind on the table, electricity, a better chance at a longer lifespan and good general health than our parents had, were things for which we could be grateful rather than guilty.
It's pretty lame to follow up on somebody's post for the sole purpose of saying "yeah".
Which is why I put in the above paragraph before saying, "yeah, Newman's Own!"
Posted by ananke (# 10059) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Telepath:
It is really simple.
It's just not really easy, for many people.
How hard is it to see that there are concrete REASONS for obesity that have nothing to do with individuals and everything to do with society/culture? Not to mention medicine?
Posted by Telepath (# 3534) on
:
Originally posted by ananke:
quote:
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Telepath:
It is really simple.
It's just not really easy, for many people.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How hard is it to see that there are concrete REASONS for obesity that have nothing to do with individuals and everything to do with society/culture? Not to mention medicine?
I can't tell if you have cited my post because you want to challenge it, or because you want to use it as support for your own post.
Posted by magdalenegospel (# 11619) on
:
There was an article in the Guardian citing studies on Western-process Soya products suggesting that they affect our thyroids among other things. Given that that sort of Soy is very common in cheap foods, it asks the question about whose fault is it that the metabolisms of individuals are slowly being screwed up, so that we struggle to eat the right amount of foods.
Eastern-Process soy - tofu, miso etc - seems to be OK as long as it's been done properly.
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by magdalenegospel:
Given that that sort of Soy is very common in cheap foods, it asks the question about whose fault is it that the metabolisms of individuals are slowly being screwed up, so that we struggle to eat the right amount of foods.
Just out of interest, the stuff I said earlier I remembered about cheap chicken was re-stated on daytime TV this week. A nutritionist was saying that you could no longer count on chicken to be a low fat, healthy meat, as cheap mass-produced chicken is actually very high fat due to the sedentery lives and unnatural diet of the chickens.
I'm very much of the opinion that less, even very little, good quality meat is a better option than cheap meat. Even if that means a vegetarian or near-vegetarian diet while times are tough. Having just lost our main income, for a while at least, this topic is close to my heart at the moment. And the subject of some domestic argument.
I do think it would be a good idea for schools to teach basic cookery from raw ingredients, both meat and veggie.
Posted by Curiosus (# 4808) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Rat:
Just out of interest, the stuff I said earlier I remembered about cheap chicken was re-stated on daytime TV this week. A nutritionist was saying that you could no longer count on chicken to be a low fat, healthy meat, as cheap mass-produced chicken is actually very high fat due to the sedentery lives and unnatural diet of the chickens.
Even "good quality" chicken contains hidden ingredients these days. I was shopping in M&S recently and happened to glance at the packets of cooked chicken drumsticks/thighs/quarters etc. I was horrified to see that sugar was listed (in very small print) as one of the ingredients. Why? These were packets of 'plain' chicken, no fancy sauces or marinades. I wonder how many people would buy pre-cooked chicken from M&S in the belief that they were buying a healthy option for lunch/supper, little realising that they were buying a product laden with sugar?
[ 25. July 2006, 13:40: Message edited by: Curiosus ]
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
Coincidentally we had a post-natal class on weaning this afternoon, and as part of that we examined the teensy-tiny ingredients print on commercial baby foods. It was absolutely shocking!
A jar of cottage pie baby food on which sugar was the third top ingredient (below some sort of scary 'beef product' and reconstituted potato). Products marked 'suitable from 4 months' containing ingredients not recommended before 6 months or a year. One familiar product describing itself as 'nutritionally tailored to meet the needs of your growing baby' contained practically no nutritional value besides sugar. 'Fruit' foods with very little fruit, but an awful lot of flavourings.
Now, before the 'it's their own fault they're stupid' brigade bite my head off, I know that buying commercial baby foods is not cost effective, and that sensible people read the ingredients. But people who lack the skills, knowledge or confidence to make up their baby food from scratch could easily be led to believe that in spending a more than manageable amount on prepackaged food they are doing the best for their baby by giving them food formulated by experts. When actually they're setting them up with a taste for processed, sugar-laden crap.
Caveat emptor is all very well, but surely food manufacturers need to take some responsibility for what they try to pass off as healthy food across the board, from chickens packed with hormones, fat and water, to trans-fats and corn syrup, to these manky baby foods.
Posted by Curiosus (# 4808) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Rat:
But people who lack the skills, knowledge or confidence to make up their baby food from scratch could easily be led to believe that in spending a more than manageable amount on prepackaged food they are doing the best for their baby by giving them food formulated by experts.
I think that this is true for many consumers, not just those buying baby food. Imagine that you are significantly overweight and that this is beginning to have an impact on your health. You decide to start eating healthily: lots of fruit juice, fruit yoghurts instead of chocolate cheesecake, plain chicken instead of takeaway. However, you weren't taught to cook as a child and/or have little confidence in your ability to cook 'proper' meals. You want to do the right thing so you start buying pre-prepared 'healthy' food which you think has been formulated by experts. What you don't realise is that the food prepared by experts is filled with sugar and hidden fats. And before anyone says "can't you read?", just remember that many of the sugars and fats are listed under long scientific names that mean nothing to the average consumer. Is it therefore any wonder that some people put on weight without overeating and/or struggle to lose weight? Yes, we are responsible for the quantity of food that we eat, but companies who load so-called 'healthy foods' with hidden sugars and fats cannot escape a degree of responsibility for the current obesity epidemic.
Posted by Curiosus (# 4808) on
:
[Apologies for the double post - ran out of editing time!]
There's a very interesting article in The Times today about high fructose corn syrup used in many health foods. It may sound healthy but many experts believe that it is a direct cause of obesity and may even be short-wiring our metabolisms. It's also very difficult to avoid - to quote part of the article:
quote:
“It is everywhere. You don’t always realise where it crops up because you don’t look for it, so you can take in large quantities of HFCS and think you are eating healthily.”
Posted by Moo (# 107) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Curious
...just remember that many of the sugars and fats are listed under long scientific names that mean nothing to the average consumer.
I read a label on a can of creamed corn which listed 'desiccated cane juice' as an ingredient. Cane sugar, anyone?
I haven't been able to find creamed corn without sugar for about thirty-five years. I have an excellent corn chowder recipe which tastes awful with added sugar.
Moo
Posted by Telepath (# 3534) on
:
Damn straight, Curiosus.
People should be able to go to a shop and buy food on the default assumption that it contains food. They shouldn't have to have the analytical obsessiveness of, well, me, to find a freaking meal they can eat.
Oh, and. A while back I read something about big words like "fructose" being scary for people, and how it would be helpful to call it "fruit sugar" instead.
Of course, most people will assume "fruit sugar" is so much better for you than that nasty sugar sugar. You know, like honey is better because it's been puked up by one of Nature's Bees.
And what will they get? Most of the time, probably, the enormously fatogenic high-fructose corn syrup! Give it up for obfuscation! Go on, give it up!
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on
:
Seriously, even if you're not trying to lose weight the sugar thing is frustrating. I don't want sugar in my tomatoes, I don't want sugar in my chinese food, and I don't want sugar in my fish sauce!
Moo, by the way, one way to avoid canned corn, in case this helps, is to buy corn on the cob and then microwave it in waxed paper. This tastes good and works quite well for takign off the cob. That doesn't help the cream but I wager it's easier to add cream than subtract sugar these days.
Posted by Cod (# 2643) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Rat:
I'm very much of the opinion that less, even very little, good quality meat is a better option than cheap meat.
That's what I do (and so of course I'm going to say that you're right). There are also cheap cuts that are pretty nutritous that seem to have gone right off the radar screen - liver, kidney, heart, tongue. Of course, that does mean having access to a half-decent butcher.
quote:
Also posted by Rat:
A jar of cottage pie baby food on which sugar was the third top ingredient (below some sort of scary 'beef product' and reconstituted potato). Products marked 'suitable from 4 months' containing ingredients not recommended before 6 months or a year. One familiar product describing itself as 'nutritionally tailored to meet the needs of your growing baby' contained practically no nutritional value besides sugar. 'Fruit' foods with very little fruit, but an awful lot of flavourings.
We fell foul of this one too, actually. We bought some baby food that was recommended by Plunkett (NZ child help and advice institution originally popularised by the now infamous Truby King), then checked the label and lo and behold - milk powder, salt and sugar and all sorts of other shit. There aren't any laws against doing that sort of thing, I suspect manufacturers try and get round it all the time. It's damn difficult - that I am happy to admit, and I don't bother checking labels anymore - I just don't buy. Fortunately, the Codlet is now old enough to eat what we have - which means we hardly ever have salt now
(edited code)
[ 01. August 2006, 08:30: Message edited by: Cod ]
Posted by ananke (# 10059) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
There are also cheap cuts that are pretty nutritous that seem to have gone right off the radar screen - liver, kidney, heart, tongue. Of course, that does mean having access to a half-decent butcher.
Those are also ones that require a higher level of skill to prepare. Not to mention the social censure associated with offal. I consider myself a damn good cook but I'm still not cooking up lambs fry without my aunt or grandma on standby. I can't imagine what it'd be like facing a cow's tongue when you've not even seen raw meat/vegetables. Which I found out the other day (thanks to some reality show) isn't an urban myth - there are children out there who have never seen real vegetables!
Posted by Laura (# 10) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
quote:
Originally posted by Curious
...just remember that many of the sugars and fats are listed under long scientific names that mean nothing to the average consumer.
I read a label on a can of creamed corn which listed 'desiccated cane juice' as an ingredient. Cane sugar, anyone?
I haven't been able to find creamed corn without sugar for about thirty-five years. I have an excellent corn chowder recipe which tastes awful with added sugar.
Moo
You just have to make your chowder without creamed corn, as we have had to do for a number of years, for exactly the reason you cite. I always make way too much corn on the cob and slice it off to save for chowder if I want chowder.
Re: the baby food, Rat, I'm really shocked to hear that the commercial baby food you have has sugar added! I took a quick peek through the Gerber and Earth's Best baby foods I have here, and keeping in mind that I don't buy the ones labeled "fruit dessert", which would be expected to have sugar, I find that none of them has sugar added. The carrots contain "carrots, water". Pears contain "pears, ascorbic acid (Vitamin C)". Sweet potatoes and corn contain "sweet potatoes, corn, water". Plums and apples contains "plums, apples". But then, I wouldn't buy a baby food with a complex food like cottage pie or macaroni and cheese, because these are things that are more likely to contain weird meat or sugary additives.
Posted by Cod (# 2643) on
:
Offal is horrible stuff when cooked wrongly. And if it's not absolutely fresh it'll give one a hell of a stomach ache (so I'm told). Which is why, as I've said a number of times, one of the main problems is knowing what to cook and how to cook it.
I cooked a cow's tongue last week. It was a bit wierd seeing this huge, piebald thing. I boiled it with carrots, leeks and onions. It was quite nice in a soft, beefy sort of way.
Two days ago I made a stock with a pig's trotter. The butcher gave it to me for nothing.
Posted by Pearalis (# 9035) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
Two days ago I made a stock with a pig's trotter. The butcher gave it to me for nothing.
Whatever became of the other three?
Reminds me of the yarn (that I can't wholly recall)about the bloke whose pig had a wooden leg, the last line of which was, "Well, with a pig that good, you don't eat him all at once".
Posted by Rat (# 3373) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Laura:
Re: the baby food, Rat, I'm really shocked to hear that the commercial baby food you have has sugar added! I took a quick peek through the Gerber and Earth's Best baby foods I have here, and keeping in mind that I don't buy the ones labeled "fruit dessert", which would be expected to have sugar, I find that none of them has sugar added. The carrots contain "carrots, water".
I should be fair - I expect the health visitor deliberately picked products for the class that would shock us into checking ingredients in future. There are very likely good products out there too. I am surprised, though, that there isn't some sort of rule about what can go into baby food.
In fact, I just checked the packet of organic baby mashed potato we got free from somewhere, and it contains "organic potato, organic rosemary extract". So that sounds OK. (Though in that case I'd have thought it would be just as easy, and a lot cheaper, just to mash a potato.)
Posted by Laura (# 10) on
:
There are rules in the US about baby food contents, but they probably aren't restrictive enough. In fact, I noticed that there are now Gerber Latino-style baby foods (which would generally be a good thing, I would think), but it turns out that these are mostly desserts, like sweetened papaya or mango with cream. I might give a baby a tiny bite of ice cream or pudding every now and then, but regular sugared fruits is probably not a good idea, in terms of forming a child's tastes.
I also would generally not blow money on baby food mashed potatoes, or things like bananas (which are very easy to mash ones' self. But applesauce is the very devil to make regularly, and the same goes for plums and other hardish fruits and vegetables. Indeed, I wouldn't buy baby food mac & cheese, soups or pastas because a small trip in the food processor reduces these to a suitable pulp.
[ 02. August 2006, 15:52: Message edited by: Laura ]
Posted by Alogon (# 5513) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Father Gregory:
it troubles me that some obese people have started looking beyond their minds and mouths to the name on the packet for someone to blame and sue for their own lack of self control. Are we creating a society of helpless victims who will do anything EXCEPT look at their own behaviours?
While this is an interesting thread throughout, it has drifted from the topic of the O.P., which asked questions that I doubt we have fully faced yet.
Several pages ago, I tried to point out that modern people are being manipulated in ways that never troubled their ancestors, and which increasingly compromise their free will in practical terms. No one picked up either to agree or disagree.
While I agree with Father Gregory in part and despise excessive, opportunistic litigaton, I also think that it is important for the church to see both sides of this issue. Free will is an important philosophical principle for us. But what do we accomplish by merely asserting it in theory? Shouldn't we also ardently work to preserve it in practice?
If you perceive what I think Hillary Clinton correctly called "a vast right-wing conspiracy" of governments and mega-corporations, whose tentacles prey upon and disempower the populace in as many ways as they can, what role would such a conspiracy envision for the church? Obviously, it would wish for something that would distract the citizenry from what is being done to them. One way to do so would be to assert free will and personal responsibility without doing anything to protect them or keep them real.
So, does the shoe fit?
If so, Marx's accusation that religion is the opiate of the people is not wide of the mark.
I hope it does not. But lest it do, we must keep our eyes open.
Posted by Nightlamp (# 266) on
:
I found this article on the OP I had been quite a supporter of the relationship between genetics and people being fat but it seems I am wrong.
Posted by OliviaG (# 9881) on
:
And this appeared in the NYT Magazine on the weekend:
Fat Factors
This was my favourite part:
quote:
One of Atkinson’s most memorable patients was Janet S., a bright, funny 25-year-old who weighed 348 pounds ... During the three months of presurgical study, the dietitian on the research team calculated how many calories it should take for a 5-foot-6-inch woman like Janet to maintain a weight of 348. They fed her exactly that many calories — no more, no less. She dutifully ate what she was told, and she gained 12 pounds in two weeks — almost a pound a day.
OliviaG
Posted by Nightlamp (# 266) on
:
The classic example that has been given to support the genetic relationship between being fat and genetics has been the Pima indians but the thrifty gene theory has now been debunked.
Janet's problem could have been a result of a miscalculation on the part of the dietician or
as the telegraph article suggested one of the very few people with a genetic problem.
Evidence is suggesting that reason most people are fat is due to over eating but in a few cases faulty genes maybe at fault.
Posted by Nightlamp (# 266) on
:
The other issue is of course that over eating could be a result of an addiction to food, which may have a genetic component.
© Ship of Fools 2016
UBB.classicTM
6.5.0